


Pack Rule

by paradiamond



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Ensemble Cast, M/M, Werewolf AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-02 03:51:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What the hell was that?” Shane gives him a once over when they both get out of hearing distance from the house, running to catch up with the others. Glenn doesn’t answer, just shifts into a wolf and keeps running. Impossibly, he still feels Daryl’s eyes on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Trial

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of done for/inspired by a prompt for the TWD kinkmeme, which already has a fantastic unfinished fill that you all should go and read (: 
> 
> http://twd-kinkmeme.livejournal.com/1353.html?thread=516681#t516681
> 
> Mostly I just wanted to write about werewolves.

They’re going as wolves, but will change back once they get there, as The Law dictates. It’s a show of trust, though Glenn doesn’t know what part trust has in this particular visit.

He feels more than he sees his brothers and sisters running around him, not just in the pounding of their paws on the ground, but through some new awareness he hadn’t had before. He’d asked T-Dog about it once, and he’d called it his ‘wolf-sense’. Glenn isn't sure what to call it, but he knows that Rick is, of course, in front, Amy and Andrea are off to his left, Jim and Dale are behind, and Shane is bringing up the rear as usual, making sure they're all safe. The others are all there too, which is unusual in and of itself.

They’re getting close though, Glenn is starting to smell other wolves. Two wolves in particular. They’re in their territory now. He puts his head down and runs harder, catching up with Lori, who gives him a side glance and keeps going, drawing level with, but never overtaking, Rick.

Acting on some instinctual signal, Glenn stops along with the rest of the pack. He glances around, vaguely aware that he’ll be able to see much more in his other shape. They’re still in the forest, though he thinks he can make out a house through the trees. He can certainly smell one.

Rick starts to change, his bones shifting and lengthening while his muscles stretch in a way they were never meant to go. Glenn looks away to concentrate on his own change, and by the time he’s done so is everyone else except for Dale and Amy. He stands, breathing hard. The change had never been easy for him. Dale keeps telling him that it gets better with time, but so far he's still waiting.

Glenn checks all their faces in the light of the full moon. It isn't actually significant to them, just part of pack tradition to conduct rituals such as weddings, trials, selections, and all other events of importance under one. They’re all looking steady for the most part, except for Amy, who’s a bit pale, speaking softly to her sister, and Jim, who’s looking twitchy, his eyes darting around the clearing, mouth set in a hard line. Glenn supposes it makes sense, given Jim’s lifestyle. Jim preferred to live in reverse from what most weres choose to do, staying in his wolf form for as long as possible and changing back only when necessary, mostly to attend mandatory pack meets. Glenn watches him and wonders when the last time Jim had been in his first form not at a meet in a member’s house, the last time he had been _outside_ as a man as opposed to a wolf.

Judging from the way he's acting, Glenn figures it had been awhile.

“Alright.” The clearing, which had already been quiet, falls completely still and silent. Rick’s standing in front of the semi-circle they had fallen into naturally.

“Now, I hope I don’t really need to say this again, but I’m going to anyway, just to make sure y'all are all aware of the seriousness of the situation.” He meets their eyes one at a time. When he gets to Glenn at the end of the line, he manages to hold Rick's gaze, though he feels a drop of sweat roll down his naked back. Satisfied, Rick continues. 

“Merle Dixon is dangerous. Shane and I investigated this one both officially and unofficially.” Out of the corner of his eye, Glenn sees Shane crack a smile and Lori shoot him a glare. He thinks once again how convenient it is to have two pack members in on law enforcement; how useful it must have been for the last pack leader, back when Rick had been second in command.

Rick ignores Shane, crossing his arms “We got reports of two young women that appeared to have been savaged by a dog.” He shifts slightly. “Shane and I took the case and rode out. What we found was not...nice.” Glenn fights down a visible wince. He had seen the case photos. ‘Not nice’, was a vast understatement. Glenn wonders how they had explained the sexual assault wounds along with what were clearly animal bites, and then forcibly stops the train of thought, bringing his attention back to Rick.

“Basically what we’re here to do is to deal with Merle as dictated by the Law. We as in Shane and myself. The rest of you are here to stand witness as members of this pack and nothing else unless I tell you otherwise, is that clear?”

Seven murmured ‘yeses’.

Rick nods. “Ok. Then let’s go.”

They move slowly through the trees and into the yard. Glenn looks around. It looks like some kind of dilapidated redneck amusement park, littered with bottles and tires, with about three separate broken down vehicles of questionable origin occupying the grass near the side of the house, which in itself is a two-story parable for following building codes. The side porch is leaning at a 45 degree angle, and one of the upstairs windows is smashed. He’s so distracted by the near shocking level of disrepair that Glenn almost fails to notice the man sitting on the steps leading up the the front door, which is about three different colors of chipped paint.

 _Daryl Dixon._ Glenn thinks. The brother.

He considers him from his position to the back left, next to T-Dog. Daryl Dixon shirtless, showing off an impressive number of scars, most likely from fights with other wolves. Judging from the looks of him, Glenn doubts if he fights to anything but the death. He feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up, his instincts telling him this is not someone he wants to cross. 

Rick stops about ten feet away from the start of the steps. “Good evening. I’m Rick-”

Daryl lifts his head. “I know who you are.” His voice is gravely and low.

Andrea growls softly in the back of her throat, and Lori puts a hand on her arm. Rick ignores them. “Well then if you know that then you probably know why I’m here.” Daryl doesn’t respond, just gives Rick an evaluating look. 

_He looks tired_ , Glenn thinks. He wonders how long he’d been sitting there.

Shane steps forward. “Why don’t you go and get your brother. We need to have a word with him.”

Rick nods and looks Daryl right in the eyes. After a minute, Daryl stands up, happening to glance over in Glenn’s direction. Glenn meets his eyes-

-and feels like he’s been punched in the stomach. All the breath leaves him at once. Daryl must feel it too because he falters slightly on the steps, still staring at Glenn.

Glenn stares back, his eyes wide, unsure of what to do. Everything becomes charged, like there’s tangible electricity moving through the air. No one else seems to notice it. He feels rooted to the spot, pinned down, and his heart starts beating so hard he can feel it in his head. It’s not an overly pleasant sensation.

After an eternity that must have only been a few seconds long, Rick calls out, “Daryl?” He’s starting to sound annoyed. Daryl blinks and looks away, back towards Rick, and Glenn can breathe again.

“I’ll go wake him up.” Daryl starts back up the steps, sending Glenn one more evaluating look before walking through the half-open door. Thankfully, it does not produce the same results. Glenn waits until he’s disappeared into the house before he drops his head to stare at the ground. _What the hell just happened?_ He notices one of his hands shaking and clenches it into a fist, forcibly pulling himself together. 

“Why isn’t he fighting us?” It’s Amy, whispering to Andrea, but it’s Dale who answers, too loudly in Glenn’s opinion, though everything seems too loud and too bright and too much at the moment. 

“Probably because he knows that Merle is guilty. He violated Pack Rules.”

Shane turns around to glare, and Dale quiets.

Pack Rules, The Basic Laws, whatever you called them, every werewolf, pack or no pack, knew them. They are clear, and there are only two.

Never kill humans, and, Never reveal the existence of werewolves to humans. Simple.

Glenn remembers being given them by Dale, almost a year ago, as he was recovering from his first change in Rick Grimes’ basement. They hadn’t seemed so hard to follow, given the consequences for violating them.

Daryl chooses that moment to reemerge, followed by what must be his brother. There isn’t much resemblance, though Glenn wonders if it’s more due to certain lifestyle choices evident in Merle’s appearance than anything else. He purposefully avoids looking in Daryl’s direction, telling himself that Merle is the bigger threat and that if he makes a move he needs to be ready. It’s a good thought, and he almost believes it.

Merle saunters down the steps, swaying a bit. It takes Glenn a second to realize, mostly because he just can’t believe that he would be doing this _now_ , that he’s either high or drunk or both. He comes to a shaky stop at the base of the stairs and sticks his hands in his pockets. Glenn wonders for a moment that he doesn’t find it odd anymore, standing around in a stranger's yard buck naked with eight other people. 

“Well well well, if it isn’t the noble pack leader and his dogs.” He spits. “What can I do you for?”

Impossibly, Rick's spine gets even straighter. “You know as well as I do Merle. My predecessor was lenient with you because he respected you father, but things have gone too far. The situation with the girls-” Even though he’s not looking a Daryl, Glenn sees him visibly tense and glance off to the side. “-is the last straw. You violated The Law, being solitary doesn’t excuse you from that. The Pack has to act.”

Merle seems to consider this, running his hand over his bald head. “Here’s the thing though, Grimes.” Lori’s eyes narrow and Shane shifts his weight. “I don’t really see what I did was any different from what y'all do every day.”

Rick blinks. “How’s that?”

Merle shrugs, his face stretching into a manic grin. “Don’t you hunt animals?”

The silence drags. Glenn can actually feel the heat coming off Andrea, the civil rights lawyer, two people away. He glances back to the house. Daryl is leaning against the support beam, which is leaning away from him in turn. He has his eyes closed and Glenn feels an unexpected wave of empathy.

_Focus Glenn._

Rick and Shane are sharing a look. Then, Rick glances back, and nods to Dale, the elder member, and therefore keeper of The Law. Dale acknowledges it and steps forward.

“Merle Dixon, in accordance with your crimes I hereby condemn you under the power of Pack Rule, which has been The Law since the first of the first wolves ran, under the light of the first of all moons, and all moons that followed.” The familiar words seemed to flow from him. Glenn wonders how many times he had said them over the years. “You are therefore offered the choice of trial by combat, in which you will be able to name your champion, or trial by judgement that has already passed, punishable by ancient Law with the loss of your right hand, and sentenced to be banished from pack lands, to which you may never return.” 

The hair on the back of Glenn’s neck prickled. Losing a paw was almost akin death sentence for a wolf with no pack; death for the wolf at least. “How will he hunt?” He had asked Dale, before they’d left. 

Dale had given him a stern look. “He won’t. He’ll have to eat as a man, or find others willing to hunt for him.” 

The warning had been clear; follow the rules. 

Merle shifts and casts a loaded glance at Amy and Andrea. Glenn feels himself tense up. 

“I’ll take the fight.” T-Dog snorts. Merle looks like he can barely stand, let alone fight. Glenn’s eyes flicker back over to Daryl, still leaning against the pole, but now his eyes are open, watching the proceedings. Glenn wonders if he’ll volunteer to fight for his brother. 

Dale nods solemnly. “You have that right. Will you be championing yourself?” Next to Rick, Shane was already beginning to crouch, in preparation for the change. They would fight as wolves, of course, to the death. And Shane would obliterate him, Glenn had no doubt.

Merle spit. “Damn straight.”

“No.”

All the attention was immediately focused on Daryl, who had straightened and was glaring down from the top of the stairs. “He won’t.” 

Rick frowns. “So you volunteer?” He sounds resigned, like the time he had sentenced Ed Peletier to death for repeated assault against a pack member; his daughter, Sophia. He hadn’t be able to make any move against him when it had just been Carol, because as a non-were, she wasn’t pack, and therefore not under official pack protection. It still rankled with Glenn, that they’d had to wait so long to act, just because Carol wasn’t _technically_ their sister, even though she was. That they’d had to wait until he inevitably put his hands on that little girl. 

In strict accordance of The Law, Ed should have been punished just for revealing their existence to Carol, but the old leader had given him leave, on account of the fact that they were already married with Sophia on the way when he told her.

Daryl crosses his arms. “No, but neither does Merle.”

Merle whips around, almost tripping over his feet. “Excuse me? What’d you say? I can take care of myself!” He’s slurring so badly that Glenn can barely understand him.

Daryl fixes Rick with a look. “Merle ‘aint in no condition to be fighting anyone, let alone that thing.” He jerks his head in Shane’s direction. Shane narrows his eyes and clenches his fists, not looking away from Merle.

Dale crosses his arms. “Well that isn’t our fault. Merle knows the law, he knew we were coming for him. He’s already chosen. So either he’s fighting in the challenge, or you are.”’

Daryl doesn’t look away from Rick. “I’m his next of kin.”

Shane scoffs. “So?”

Rick holds up a hand, and Shane goes silent. He nods at Daryl. “Go on.” 

“I’m his next of kin, so the way I see it, I make his decisions when he can’t make them for himself.” Glenn glances over at Merle, who seems to be trying to process what his brother is saying, his eyebrows furrowed, silent. “And right now, he clearly ‘aint thinkin’ straight.”

Rick looks over at Dale, who shifts uncomfortably. “I mean, there isn’t really a precedent for-”

Shane throws up his arms. “Why are we even considering this? The guy’s a killer, he made his choice, let’s deal with it and go home.”

Rick looks back at Daryl. “What are you suggesting?”

Daryl looks at Merle, and then back to Rick. “He’ll loose the hand, and take banishment.”

Merle screams in rage and throws himself at Daryl.

It ends up taking Shane, Rick, Andrea, T-Dog and Jim to pull him off his brother and wrestle him to the ground, still thrashing, screaming his head off, an incomprehensible mess of words and broken syllables.

Glenn watches, wide-eyed, and Rick looks over at him, his face hard. “Glenn, Dale, go find a saw.” Glenn blinks and makes his legs move, past Amy, who gives him a dark look, her face pale.

He and Dale locate the shed and a saw in under two minutes. Glenn grips it too tight as they run back, his mind weirdly stuck on the thought, _how could they have not brought a saw?_ He figures they probably just assumed he would pick combat, Dale said they usually did. _Though_ , Glenn thinks, _they hadn’t counted on Daryl_.

Dale leans over as they near the group and Glenn notices that Merle isn’t struggling in earnest anymore. “Make sure you watch.” Glenn nods, still facing forward. Daryl is helping hold Merle down in the place of Andrea, off to the side now with her arm around Amy, who looks like she might cry. Daryl has no expression on his face at all. 

Glenn hands the saw to Rick and backs up. Daryl shifts his grip up on Merle’s right arm, to give him space. Rick looks at him. “You don’t have to do this, Shane can hold him.”

“Shut up.” Daryl’s voice sounds wrong, and Glenn looks away, over to Lori, who is standing with her mouth set in a hard line. 

Merle starts talking again, “Bro, don’t let them do this I’m tellin’ you I never-” He cuts off with a scream, and Glenn makes himself turn his face and look.

All in all, it doesn’t take very long, but they're some of the longest minutes of Glenn’s life, after his first change. He can’t imagine what Merle must be feeling. Or Daryl. 

After it’s done, and the screaming has mostly stopped, and Jim has collected the hand (as penance, Merle didn’t get to keep it), Merle stumbles up, a dazed sort of look on his face and fumbles his way into the house.

Daryl doesn’t move for a few seconds, staring at the blood on the ground. Rick reaches out like he’s going to touch him, but then clearly thinks better than it and gestures to the pack to start changing and moving out. He turns back to Daryl, who’s standing now, making his way back up the steps.

“Merle has three days to go, or we have to come back.” Daryl nods. He looks coldly furious, though Glenn thinks that it isn’t directed at Rick.

Rick shifts his weight. “He know to cauterize the wound?” That earns him a glare, and Rick frowns and turns away, changing as he goes. Daryl shifts his gaze to Glenn, who doesn’t meet his eyes.

Glenn takes a long look at the blood. He frowns, and turns to follow the others, moving into an easy crouch to change, when he feels eyes on him. Or rather, fails to stop feeling them. He turns, already knowing, and sees Daryl, still standing on the top step and staring, his expression unreadable. Glenn doesn’t move, just returns the look. He feels his blood start to move, like he’s shifting or running, and twitches involuntarily. Daryl shifts slightly, and Glenn-

“Glenn!”

He whips his head around and jerks to a standing position. It’s Shane, standing at the edge of the tree line, glaring over at him. Glenn immediately starts running over. He doesn’t look back.

“What the hell was that?” Shane gives him a once over when they both get out of hearing distance from the house, running to catch up with the others. Glenn doesn’t answer, just shifts into a wolf and keeps running. Impossibly, he still feels Daryl’s eyes on him. 

And that’s the last of Daryl Dixon Glenn sees for the next month and a half.


	2. Meets, Games, and Fights

“-which is why I think we need to look into it!” Glenn shifts his attention back over to Shane. He knows he should be making more of an effort to pay attention, but it was hard when they had been at it for over an hour. He meets Andrea’s gaze from across the room, and she gives him a tight, sympathetic smile. Sometimes he thinks it would be better if Rick was less democratic as a leader. They would have shorter meetings at least. 

“Shane, we’ve been over this, the pack deals with it’s own land. What happens in other states doesn’t concern us.” Shane runs a hand over his shaved head and leans against Dale’s mantelpiece. Pack meets happen at least once every moon cycle at a pack members house on a rotational basis. They all greatly prefer when they’re at Dale’s because of the large amounts of land and lack of close neighbors. Glenn had been excused from host duty due to the fact he lived in a tiny college apartment in the middle of the city. It’s not strictly speaking in accordance with The Law, but Dale had ruled it as a ‘valid departure from tradition’, which is Dale-speak for 'it's convenient'.

Glenn feels his attention wandering again as his gaze drifts to the window. He wants to run and it’s difficult to care about potential non-pack wolf activity three states over, whether it includes Merle Dixon or not. Glenn somehow doubts that he’s putting together some kind of revenge army against the pack, but Shane seems to think so, therefore they have to sit in Dale’s back room for an indeterminable amount of time as Rick and Shane go round in circles. At least they’d let the kids leave with Carol after the first half hour of it. 

He watches a flash of movement in the trees in the fading light, probably a rabbit, maybe a squirrel. Glenn shifts in his chair, feeling that tingle in his spine that tells him it’s time to change. It’s been too long, even though it had only been four days. He should have gone yesterday, but by the time he got off work it had been midnight and he’d thought it would be fine to wait for the meet, which would be better anyway because then he’d be with others. 

He sighs and cracks his neck, tracing the tree line with his eyes. He’d been needing to change more and more often lately, ever since they'd dealt with Merle and Glenn had looked in his brother’s eyes and stopped being able to get good sleep. All he wanted to do was run. He knows should talk to someone, probably Dale, but he hadn’t. 

A sharp jab in his side from T-Dog and Glenn’s back in the room, whipping his head around to focus on Rick, who’s giving him an amused look. “Alright, that’s it. Let’s go run.” 

Jim is up and out of his seat like a shot, practically running out the door, shifting as he goes. Dale chuckles and stands to follow, shrugging out of his jacket and patting Glenn on the back as he passes. 

Glenn stays in his seat, his eyes on Rick, who beckons him over. He stands, his face heating slightly. “Rick, I’m sorry, I-” 

Rick waves him off. “Don’t worry about it, just don’t let it happen again.” Glenn nods and shifts his weight to the other foot, glancing out the window. The other were all gathered in the yard, in various states of undress and stages of the change. Rick gives him a critical look. “You ok?” 

Glenn looks back at him. “I- yeah. I’m just...” He trails off. 

Rick takes hold of his shoulder, and gives it a comforting squeeze. “We’ll talk later.” 

Glenn nods, his face burning. Fantastic. Like it wasn’t enough to be not only the newest member, _and_ the one who had their first change the most recently. He wonders how long it’ll take before they all stop treating him like the pack child. Probably not until the actual children have their changes. Which should be in about, oh, five years or so. 

He sighs and strips off his shirt, following the others out the door. He’s so anxious for it the change comes fast and easy, ripping through his muscles like fire but leaving him distinctly satisfied. 

They’re all waiting for him just inside the trees, and as soon as he takes a step towards them on four legs they’re off with him on their heels, trailing each others tails and playfully snapping at each others paws. Amy falls back to swat at him teasingly. She’s second-youngest after him in both changes and when she joined the pack, but younger than him in age. They don’t have a ton in common on two legs, but they always run together. 

Amy and Andrea both only have a few months on him. They were from out of state, from an old family Dale knew. According to T-Dog, who's a hopeless gossip, they had run into some trouble, and Andrea had wanted Amy to have a stable environment for her first change. They called Dale, who talked to Rick, then moved down to join the pack on a temporary basis and never left. 

He picks up his pace, overtaking Amy and then Jim, who’s bounding around happily, looking in a much better mood now that he’s back in the shape he prefers. Jim tackles him playfully, knocking him off-balance and into Lori who shoots them an unimpressed look, growling softly. Glenn, who landed on top, wags his tale at her. 

A loud bark rings out through the clearing, and they all stop to scramble up and off of each other to face Rick. He paces along a ridge and then settles into a crouch, facing them. He jerks his head to the side, and they fall into formation. Glenn feels his heart rate pick up. _Time to hunt._

They end up bringing down and sharing a deer. Glenn goes to sit with Amy as Rick takes the first share. The pack moves down the ingrained hierarchical list and Glenn, who’s last, settles down to wait, letting Amy lick the blood off his face for him. 

They all have their share, and then it’s play time again. Rick and Dale settle down to watch as Jim and T-Dog wrestle, Lori chases Andrea in circles, and Shane plays at grabbing low-flying birds out of the sky. Amy sneaks up behind Glenn while his attention is on a squirrel he’s pretty sure has to come down at some point, and jumps on his back. She latches onto his neck, growling playfully and Glenn bucks and rolls, effectively dislodging her and taking off running.

She chases him, her paws scattering leaves. They take off headlong into the forest, Glenn leading her into what he knows is hilly and complicated land. He makes a sharp left and hears her skid through mud, barking in surprise. He makes as tight a turn as he can manage on four legs and leaps at her, knocking her to the ground. She goes limp, whining slightly, and he licks her face, giving her a wolfy grin. She rolls her massive eyes and squirms out from under him, bumping him with her head and scampering off, back they way they came. _You’re it_

He goes to chase after her, but stops, turning his head in confusion. His ears prick up, and he scans the tree line. After a moment, he gets another whiff of the scent that had captured his attention and takes off after it. As he runs, he notices that he and Amy had gone farther than he thought, off Dale’s property. 

He puts his head down and goes faster. He’s tracking another wolf, one he thinks he might recognize. He locates and follows the trail to where it cuts through a river. Stopping, he looks around the area, and takes off again across the river, swimming the deeper sections with ease. On the other side, he finds the trail again and keeps on running. 

After about ten minutes, he becomes aware he’s being followed. He keeps his movements steady and stays on the trail. The wind shifts and suddenly Glenn knows with absolute certainty. _Daryl_

He keeps running, listening to Daryl’s paws drum on the ground, closer now. Finally he spies what he’s looking for and makes a hard left, trusting the other wolf to keep on going and slide through the mud. Instead, Daryl follows him perfectly and bowls him over as he’s making the turn to face him, effectively pinning him down. Glenn curses himself internally for thinking that he’d fall for the same trick as Amy, being several years older and undoubtedly more experienced. 

Glenn growls and tries to buck him off. Daryl gives him what seems to be a wolf version of an amused look and smells at his face. He’s a few dozen pounds of muscle heavier than Glenn and doesn’t seem to be putting in a ton of effort into keeping him down. 

He whines and struggles, not doing much but letting Daryl know he wanted up. Daryl doesn’t seem overly interested in complying, but also not overly interested in killing him, still smelling around at his neck and licking him lightly. It’s strange, though Glenn doesn’t feel like he’s in any sort of danger, not really. 

He goes limp, mostly just to see what Daryl will do, which turns out to be nothing other than relaxing his guard enough to allow Glenn to flip him. Daryl growls and pushes at his face with one paw, but doesn’t right them despite his superior strength. Glenn stares down at him, unsure of what he wants to do. He should leave, go back to the group. Finally, something makes him lower his head and smell at Daryl’s face who gives a soft growl but doesn’t buck or bite. He has a nice scent, Glenn decides. He leans down and licks his face, like Daryl had done, provoking a sort of indignant huff from the other wolf. Glenn sits up on his haunches and Daryl scrambles up, settling a few feet away, watching him. 

They’re still looking at each other in silence, Glenn’s brain starting to catch up with itself, just starting think that something was clearly wrong with him, when he hears Rick’s howl. 

They both whip their heads in the direction and Glenn jumps up. He looks back at Daryl, who’s studying him now, and swivels his ears. Glenn blinks, and almost starts back over to him, but then he hears Rick again, and it jolts him back into reality. He turns and runs. 

Predictably, Daryl doesn’t follow. 

His blood is pounding as he races back to the clearing they had settled in, locating it and joining up with the others, who had clearly been waiting for him. Amy gives him a baleful look for abandoning her, and moves to the other side. Everyone else aside from Dale is mostly giving him looks that range from shock (Lori) to suspicion (Shane) to curiosity (Andrea) to confusion (T-Dog). He doesn’t blame them, he went through the river again, but he can actually smell Daryl on himself. He focuses on Rick, who eyes trace over him briefly before he sets off in the direction of Dale’s. Glenn follows.

His head is a mess the entire way back. 

They reach Dale’s in a matter of minutes and start to change back. Glenn moves off to the side and stays in a crouch for longer than strictly necessary, his mind going in circles. 

He can feel the others eyes on him as he locates and pulls on his pants. He ignores them. 

T-Dog makes his way over from across the yard, where he’d clearly been watching Glenn. He stops and rocks back on his heels, casually sticking his hands in his pockets. Glenn resists the urge to rolls his eyes. “Yeah?” 

He scratches his head, like he always does when he’s a bit uncomfortable. “Nothing, just wanted to know if you were up for a post-run burger?” Behind him, Glenn hears Andrea snort. 

He almost agrees, then remembers he’s supposed to talk to Rick, who’s looking at him from across the yard, Shane talking quietly in his ear. He snags a shoe from out of a bush. “Can’t, maybe later. Sorry.” T-Dog hands him his other shoe. “Naw, it’s cool.” He glances off to the side and then back.

“So, uh. You weren’t around much this run. Find something else to do?” 

Glenn sighs and doesn’t bother to answer. They can all smell it on him anyways.

***

“Sooooo...” Glenn looks up from where he had been sorting his tips at the register of Pizza Palace. It’s Amy, looking for all the world like a dirty old man’s wet dream in her tight white capri pants and tank top. He frowns, he should have noticed her come in. She leans against the counter and props her chin up with one hand. Across the store, Glenn sees Joe, one of his fellow pizza delivery guys, look her over and then shoot him an incredulous glance. 

“Hey Amy, what’s up?” 

She drums her fingers on the counter. “Oh you know, nothing. Andrea wanted a pizza and I volunteered to go.” Glenn rolls his eyes and puts in the order. Amy didn’t have a job, or any responsibilities really. She was enrolled for classes at the same university as Glenn for the next year, but it was summer and Andrea made enough to support them twice over so she basically just wanders the city, parties, and attends meets as far as Glenn’s seen. 

She always makes a point to go to Glenn’s pizza place when ever she gets the urge, which is often, werewolf metabolism and all that. The whole pack does, out of some kind of pack solidarity. Even Dale, who lives way out of town on the other side of the big ass quarry makes a point to get pizza from there at least once a month and gives Glenn ridiculous tips like he’s Glenn doting grandfather who’s just so proud to see him out working in the real world. It’s kind of weird, but also kind of cool. 

Amy pulls on his ear. “Hello? I’m talking to you.” 

Glenn glares at her half-heartedly. “What? I’m working you know.”

She rolls her eyes and look exaggeratedly around the nearly empty room. “Yeah I can see that.” She flips her hair off her shoulder and sticks a hand on one hip. “ _Anyway_. I said that you seem pretty out of it, you ok? How’d your Rick talk go? I haven’t seen you since the party, and that was like, a week ago, so.” ‘Party’ was how they referred to pack meets in public.

Glenn takes of his hat and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m fine, it was fine.” He shrugs. 

“Hm.” She studies him for a minute. “So. Seen Daryl Dixon again since then?” 

He jerks up, his face going red. “You-” 

He’s saved from having to answer by the phone ringing. He makes a wild grab for it, shooting her a glare and turning around to face the kitchen. She scoffs and leans against the counter, presumably to wait for her food and make his life difficult. He takes an order for a woman living out in the suburbs and logs it, going back into the kitchen to grab Amy a large with everything. She accepts it and gives him a searching look, fishing for her wallet in her massive purse. 

She holds out her money, but doesn’t let go of it when he goes to take it. “Amy...” 

“You _smell_ like him. Still.” 

Glenn takes a breath and reminds himself that Amy means well. He jerks the money out of her hands, causing her to lurch forward slightly. She shoots him a glare. “Amy. I really need you not be in my business about this.”

“I just-” She gives him a searching look, hefting the pizza with one hand. “You’re being all weird, and I’m worried about you.” For a moment she looks actually upset, and Glenn feels bad, and also like he really doesn't want to deal with a crying girl in the middle of his workplace. 

He reaches out and awkwardly pats her head. “Look, I promise I’ll talk to you about this later, I don’t even actually know what’s going on, really.” 

She scrubs a hand over her face and opens the pizza box, taking out a slice. “Yeah well, you better be there to be my dance partner at the next party, is all I’m saying.” She gives him a soft smile. 

After that, the worst of it is over. She sits on the counter and eats the whole pizza while he puts in orders and counts out change. An hour later, Andrea calls, wanting to know where the hell her pizza was, so Glenn gets her another one and she leaves, giving him a cheerful wave and mouthing ‘later’ through the glass door. 

He runs a hand over his face and starts gathering his stuff for the end of his shift. He almost feels bad for kind of hoping that emotional Amy talk-sessions would not now become a regular part of his work days.

It’s starting to get dark by the time he gets back to his apartment, and Glenn drops face first onto his dorm-scrounged couch, staring at the clock.

In about an hour, Daryl would be in the forest near Dale’s house, like he’d been for the past week. Glenn puts his face in a pillow, resolving not to go this time. 

Forty five minutes later, he’s changing behind a bush in the gathering darkness, gritting his teeth through the pain. Changing every day for a week _hurt_ , but at least it seemed to be satisfying whatever strange insanity that had taken over his brain. Either that or it was Daryl, and Glenn didn’t much want to think about that. 

He pads through the undergrowth towards the river and focuses on how he’s going to explain ‘nighttime shift delivering pizzas tomorrow’ to a wolf, as a wolf. Wolf sign language? He figures his chances probably aren’t all that good. 

He wonders what Daryl’s reaction would be if he just started changing back. He might stay, change back with him to get the message. Maybe he would just leave. Glenn feels reluctant to try though, whatever weird thing they had going on works, and even with all the stares and internal confusion Glenn has to admit that he likes meeting up with Daryl. 

The night after the meet, after Glenn had his confusing talk with Rick, ‘ _you should follow your instincts, just be careful_ , he had been so restless that he’d gone out for the second night in a row, something they tend to avoid. Without thinking, or maybe without wanting to acknowledge it, Glenn had ended up back at the river. Twenty minutes later, Daryl had shown up. And the next night, and the night after that, for a straight week. It’s no wonder Amy could smell him on him. 

He’s not sure what he’s going to say to Rick when he next sees him, or Amy. He’s not even really sure what he’s _doing_. Playing tag and catching birds? He does that with Jim, and T-Dog, and it’s not the same. He’s not stupid, he knows what’s going on. The question is, does he want where this is headed? He’s not sure, and it’s easier to just focus on running, so he does. 

When he gets there, already late, he sees he’s not the only one. He huffs, feeling vaguely affronted and settles down to wait. 

An hour later, he admits to himself that Daryl’s probably not coming. He lashes the ground with his tail, glaring around at the trees. He could have at least let Glenn know. Left him a message or something. 

He jumps up and paces around, whining and pawing at the ground. He tries to imagine Daryl picking up a phone, or sending him an email, ‘Dear Glenn, sorry but I can’t meet up with you as a wolf tonight, please help yourself to some birds without me.’ The image is ridiculous. For one thing, he probably didn’t even know Glenn’s _name_ let alone a way to contact him. They hadn’t exactly swapped numbers. Glenn thumps back down to the ground feeling annoyed and miserable. 

Obviously, he had left him a message. It said, ‘whatever this was, it’s over.’ They’d had a weird thing at his house, some sort of wolfy connection, and Daryl had obviously decided not to respond to it anymore. Glenn knows he should respect that. It’s what Rick would want him to do. 

He takes off running into the woods. 

By the time he reaches the property, it’s full dark and the moon is up. He pauses just past the tree line, eying the house. It looks better than it did the last time, though maybe that’s just because he remembers it being so horrifically bad. Finding it had been easy despite the fact he’d only been there once since there were a weeks worth of trails to follow. 

He can see an indistinct shape moving around inside, which his human brain identifies as a man. To be honest he’s not totally sure what his plan is. Go up to his door butt naked and knock? Hang around in his yard as a wolf? Knock over his trash cans? 

He’s saved from having to decide by Daryl coming out the front door, an annoyed and angry look on his face, making a beeline for where Glenn is hiding. He feels a moment of panicked confusion. He thinks that Daryl must have insanely sharp eyes or a very good nose to pick out a black wolf at night crouched fifty feet away. He tries to scramble backwards into the trees, a maneuver not really meant for four legs, before just turning around to run.

“Hey!" He freezes and turns his head to look. Daryl is standing not ten feet away, holding a _crossbow_ and glaring at him. He admits to himself that this had been a bad idea. He wonders if he’s faster than an arrow. Probably not. 

Daryl glares down at him. “Change.” Glenn blinks at him, trying to make sense of English words as a wolf, something else Dale tells him gets easier with practice. Eventually though, he gets the message, highly motivated by the crossbow pointed at his face. 

He’s still recovering, panting, his hands on the ground when Daryl grabs him by the shoulder and hauls him up, glaring. 

“What the hell are you doin’?” 

“I-” He trails off, not really sure how to continue. Daryl’s eyes are more expressive as a man than they are as a wolf, and at moment they're filled with anger. Glenn supposes that this is only the second time he’s ever seen him in this shape. It’s a strange thought, but he realizes that he can’t read him half as well this way. “You weren’t there, tonight at the river-” 

“So?” He lowers the crossbow, sneering. “I don’t owe you anythin’, I don’t even know you. Go home to your _pack_ and leave me the hell alone.” He turns back towards the house. Glenn freezes. He doesn’t _know_ him? 

Glenn feels his face get hot. He clenches his hands into fists at his sides. “Don’t pull that crap with me! You know as well as I do-” 

Daryl whirls and gets right up in his space, red faced and dangerous, but Glenn’s too angry to back down. “Kid, I’m giving you one chance to get off my property, I’m not interested in-” 

“What happened the night of the trial? Because it was _something_ and you don’t get to just-” He gestures vaguely. Daryl gives him and unreadable look. 

“Yeah well, you can just get it out of your head because it was nothin’. Go home. I don' want to see you around here again.” 

What happens after that is kind of a blur, but it basically amounts to Glenn pushing Daryl as hard as he can, Daryl punching him in the jaw and then grabbing his face and kissing him. 

All in all it amounts to a pretty weird week. 


	3. Clarification

Glenn wakes up with the disorientation that comes with sleeping in a new place. Blinking drowsily, he realizes he’s looking up at a dirty ceiling fan. He frowns, confused, but then catches Daryl’s scent and remembers. _Oh, right._

He sits up, the blanket he’d found last night pooling around his naked waist, and looks around at the room Daryl had left him in the night before. Glenn hadn’t seen him since, though he’d heard him pacing the floors long after he had settled down to sleep. He’s in what he supposes is the living room, though it doesn’t seem like it’s used overly much. The couch he slept on smells vaguely of beer and strongly of Daryl, and the TV resting on the table is covered with a layer of dust. Most of the rest of the space is taken up by an odd assortment of books, auto parts, unmatched pieces of furniture, and various other things of questionable origin. He wonders what is Daryl’s and what was Merle’s, assuming he left anything around. 

He looks away, feeling like he’s prying and rubs his eyes, wondering what time it is and if he should go to Dale’s and wait for dark or if he should risk the city as a wolf in the daytime. He makes a passable dog, not being so big, but still. Rick wouldn’t like it. 

“You up?” Glenn whips his head around to see Daryl leaning in the doorway behind him, a slight frown on his face. It seems to be his default expression, though Glenn hasn’t exactly seen him a lot in this shape. 

“I, uh. Yeah.” 

“You need to learn to use your nose more.”

Glenn blinks. “What?” 

Daryl shifts and moves into the room, which is honestly not the mess Glenn had expected it to be, considering the exterior of the house. “I’ve been standing there for the past ten minutes, an’ you didn’t notice.” 

“Oh.” Glenn says, studying his face. The silence stretches. _This is a lot easier when we’re both wolves_

Finally, Daryl clears his throat and crosses his arms, looking away. “You comin’ over tonight then?” 

Glenn blinks, surprised. _What happened to ‘Go home?’_ The memory of kiss floods back and he flushes, glancing away to the window. 

“I uh- no.” Daryl looks over at him, his eyebrows furrowing. He opens his mouth, an annoyed look on his face, and Glenn puts up his hands. “I’ve got to work. I was trying to figure out how to tell you as a wolf, and then you weren’t there.” Daryl gives him an incredulous look. 

“What were you goin’ to do? Use wolf sign language?” 

Glenn bursts out laughing. 

He ends up borrowing a pair of pants and a t-shirt and catching a ride from Daryl on his bike. “Are you sure?” He turns the helmet around in his hands, half anxious to leave and half wanting to stay. Daryl rolls his eyes. 

“I tol’ you I gotta go into to town anyway. Stop askin’.” Glenn looks at the motorcycle with curiosity as Daryl goes back in the house for something. They still hadn’t talked about last night, and Glenn figures they probably won’t anytime soon. Or ever. He glances down at the ground, where Merle’s blood had been not two months ago. _What are we doing?_

Daryl comes back out, the screen door banging shut. He gives Glenn a once over and swings a leg over the bike. “Ready?” 

Glenn climbs on and after a moment of deliberation, takes hold of Daryl’s waist. He’s warmer than Glenn expected, and he smells good, Glenn has to resist the urge to press his face into Daryl’s back. One bruise is enough, thank you. 

“Thanks for letting me crash on your couch.” 

Daryl revs the bike, and doesn’t respond.

***

Things go back to normal, relatively speaking, with the notable addition of visits to Daryl’s house before and after their runs. Glenn still goes to meets, delivers pizzas, avoids phone calls from his mother. Amy continues to bother him at work while Rick gives him cryptic, unhelpful advice as Lori shoots him sideways looks. 

Daryl continues to let him sleep on his couch and lets him borrow his clothes, something Amy loses her mind over. _Don’t you know what that means??_ Glenn ignores her. He knows she’s probably right, but he ignores her anyway. 

They don’t talk about the kiss. Ever. It’s fine with Glenn, he’d rather not think about it. Though sometimes he’ll catch Daryl staring at his mouth when they eat the pizzas Glenn brings over, sitting on the slanted side porch and watching the moon. Sometimes he catches himself doing the same. 

It’s easier as wolves. Less complicated. Glenn chases him around the river and helps him hunt for squirrels. Daryl licks his face and they curl up together in a hollow tree. Look out for each other. Simple. 

_Jim has it right._ He thinks, pulling up in front of the expensive apartment complex he’d never live in, not even if he had the means. They could live anywhere, and yet they choose to live in the middle of the city. He doesn’t understand it.

He kicks his car door shut, balancing six pizzas (not enough for all of them, but T-Dog is behind him with more) in one hand, locking the car with the other. He jogs up the steps to Andrea and Amy’s apartment, ignoring the look the doorman gives him as he presses the buzzer. Another moon, another meet.

Ten minutes later, he’s sitting on Andrea’s surprisingly comfortable couch (the nice thing about their apartment is that it doesn’t have that untouchable vibe that a lot of rich houses do) next to Amy, who keeps stealing the toppings off his pizza. It shapes up to be a pretty short meet, the only major piece of news that comes at the end is Lori’s announcement that she’s pregnant. Amy screams and jumps up, running over to throw her arms around her as Rick looks on, grinning. The entire room sort of erupts into a chorus of ‘congratulations’ and squeals and thumps on the back for Rick. Even Jim looks pleased from his quiet corner of the room. 

Glenn stays long enough to get to Rick, who ruffles his hair, grinning, but gives up on trying to get to Lori, who has a lapful of excited twelve year old Sophia and is completely ringed by the female members of the pack plus Dale, who is always going on about pack longevity and the importance of children. He gathers up some of the empty pizza boxes and cups and takes them into the kitchen. 

Andrea comes in a minute later, red plastic cup in hand, and gives him an amused look. “Not big on loud, public displays of emotion either?” 

Glenn shoots her a grin. “Not really.” She laughs and helps him sort the recycling. 

It’s surprisingly nice. They end up sitting on the kitchen floor, talking about mostly nothing, drinking coke and finishing off the last of the pizzas. Glenn appreciates the chance to get closer to a member of the pack he doesn’t usually spend all that much time with, until Andrea ruins it and reminds him why. 

“So where’s your mate tonight? You should bring him around sometime.

Glenn chokes on his drink. “What?!” 

She gives him an unimpressed look. “Oh come on, like we don’t all know.” 

He stares at her, his face heating. “I- it’s not- we’re not-” She rolls her eyes and pushes him lightly on the arm.

“Oh stop. Look kid,” Glenn narrows his eyes at her. “Maybe you’re not, you know.” She gestures vaguely with the cup. He glares. “But you can’t just deny what’s been going on for, what? The past three months? And I mean, it’s clearly been good for you. You’re not as jumpy anymore, you're less distracted. I say go for it."

“Andrea...” 

She holds up her hands. “Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I’m just the one who said it.” She stands and brushes off her pants as Dale, grinning, walks into the room and gives them a curious look. 

“You guys ready to come back in? We’re about to be done here, I think Rick and Lori are going out to celebrate.” Andrea tosses her cup and heads out the door, shooting Glenn one more amused glance on her way out. He stays sitting, glaring down at the empty pizza box. Dale leans on the counter next to him. “Something wrong?” Glenn almost says no, but decides out of all of them, Dale’s the least likely to go spreading things around, except maybe to Rick. 

“Did you ever...” He glances up at Dale’s open face. “When you met your...wife.” He can’t bring himself to say ‘mate’. Dale nods. “The first time you saw her...” Understanding crosses Dale’s face. 

“I think what you’re talking about is called ‘imprinting’. It’s an instinctual drive that happens for us sometimes. Is that what you think you felt?” 

Glenn fights down a flush and shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe.” He stands. “It’s just that, the first time I met, you know.” Dale nods. “Something...happened to me. I don’t-” 

Dale claps him on the shoulder. “You should talk to Rick about this.” 

Glenn glares, he can't even imagine trying to do that. “I’m talking to _you_ , ok? I need Rick to not think I’m...” He makes a vague gesture. “I want him to know he can count on me.” Dale chuckles. 

“Oh I think Rick would appreciate it if you came to him with this. You think he wasn’t a mess when he first met his mate? Lori almost ate him alive, don’t worry about it.” 

Glenn takes a step back, glaring. “I am worried about it! I don’t get a choice in this? What-” 

Dale holds up his hands. “Of course you get a choice, your instincts are just there to tell you what the wolf thinks it should be. You’re young, and not used to following them much, but there’s a reason you keep on going back isn’t there?” Glenn feels his face heat up. It was one thing to suspect they all knew, and another to hear it.

The kitchen door opens, and Shane sticks his head in. He gives them an evaluating look. “Not to be interrupting, but we’re kind of waiting on you guys.” Dale nods at him and Shane leaves, the door swinging back into place. Glenn glares after him. He’d bet anything they all got every word. Judging from Dale’s sympathetic look, he thought so too. Fantastic.

***

“No halmi, I’m fine, _really_ ” Glenn says in his barely passable Korean and shifts the phone to his other ear. “Yes, really.” 

His grandmother, (who he called ‘halmi’ since he’d had trouble saying ‘halmoni’ as a kid), had taken to calling him every month (at least) since she found out he was a Were too, unlike both of his parents and any of his siblings other than his ten year older sister, who lives in Hawai and occasionally sends him Christmas presents. _Sometimes these things skip a generation._ She had told him cheerfully over the phone almost a year ago. 

He works on getting a mostly empty jam jar open with one arm, listening vaguely and glancing at the clock as his grandmother continues to rant about the responsibility of a mate and how he was too young and his pack leader, (‘what’s his name again?’ ‘Rick, halmi.’), should have been looking out for him more. He sighs and rubs a hand over his face.

He’s going to kill Dale. He’s going to kill himself for introducing them. 

She’s getting to the point where she doesn’t even need responses anymore, so he pushes the speakerphone button and sets it down to get the jar open, only to then realize he doesn’t have bread. _Of course_. He fishes a spoon out of the sink, gives it a cursory glance and sticks it in the jar. He really just wanted the jam anyway. 

He’s about ready to pretend to cause a fire or something to get off the phone when there’s a bang at the door. He blinks, and then quickly interrupts her, tripping over Korean words and finally just hanging up as the banging continues. Glenn glares as he takes the five total steps it takes to get to the damn door. He grabs the handle, annoyed, and freezes. 

Daryl had once told him he needed to use his nose more. Well, he's using it now. He considers going and hiding in his bedroom, or exiting via the window. He’s a werewolf. He’s pretty confident he can make the jump without serious injury. The whole door rattles under a kick.

“Kid, I know you’re in there, now open the damn door or I will!” 

_Well, that answers that._ Glenn frowns and opens the door to find a very pissed off looking Daryl Dixon, glaring at him with his arm raised, probably to tear the door off it’s hinges. 

Glenn shifts his weight and runs a hand through his hair. “Uh, hi.” Daryl narrows his eyes. 

“Move.” 

“Yup.” Glenn retreats back into the apartment, putting the couch between them. Daryl kicks the door shut, looking murderous. 

“What the hell?” 

Glenn counts it lucky he doesn’t visibly wince and tries to remind himself why this had seemed like a good idea. 

He hadn’t been to see Daryl in over a week, not since the meet. He just...hadn’t been showing up. 

It probably hadn’t been the best response. 

“Look...” Glenn starts, and then realizes he doesn’t really have much of an explanation. What’s he supposed to say? He got freaked out because someone called him his mate?

He can tell Daryl’s getting impatient. He glares, crossing his arms over his chest. “You better start explainin’ why I had to drag my ass into the _city_ to track you down.” Glenn takes it as a legitimate threat. He’d kind of counted on the city functioning as a deterrent for longer, Daryl barely tolerated being indoors. He’s always complaining about it when he comes back from town to find Glenn waiting on his porch, his shoulders hunched up defensively with a scowl on his face that wouldn’t quite fade until he’d had a run. _’Too many people too close together. And the_ smell.’ 

“How do you even know where I live?” Impossible as it seems, Daryl glares even harder. 

“Shut up, you ain’t distracting me. Start talkin’.” He walks around the couch, glaring around at the tiny apartment. To his credit, Glenn does not bolt out of the room, despite the fight or flight impulse that’s causing his blood to run and his vision to sharpen. He curls his hands into fists, and wills himself not to change. He’s pretty sure his apartment would not survive if they had a fight in it. 

“I just-” He makes a vague gesture. “I don’t know.” Daryl stops right in front of him. He’s really not all that much taller than Glenn, maybe an inch or two, but it feels like he is. Glenn notices he’s got dark circles under his eyes. He tries not to notice anything else. 

Daryl’s eyes narrow, and Glenn puts up his hands in a defensive pose. He wonders if he should show his neck or if that would just be stupid. “Ok so I got freaked out!” 

“What?” A lot of the anger seems to go out of him and he leans back slightly. 

Glenn feels secure in putting his arms down. “You heard me.” He mumbles. God this was mortifying. 

Daryl studies him, his eyes flickering over his skin, his hair, his crappy Bob Dylan t-shirt. Glenn feels naked, but more than that, because you learn pretty fast as a Were not to let it bother you. He can have entire serious conversations with Dale and Lori ass naked and not even notice it. Now he just feels exposed. 

Daryl glances off to the side, then back. He puts a hand on Glenn’s shoulder, squeezing lightly. Glenn sucks in a breath as Daryl meets his eyes, and leans in.

Glenn jerks back. “I- What are you-” 

Daryl rolls his eyes and tugs him forward by the shirt, muttering. “Good lord...” 

He slides his hand up to Glenn’s neck, pulling him forward and bringing their lips together. Glenn lets him, hesitant at first, but gaining confidence as he leans forward to press them together from knees to chest, grabbing onto his hips for balance. He sort of feels like he might fall over. 

Daryl bites his lip and he gasps, his eyes opening. Daryl takes the opportunity to invade his mouth with his tongue. All at once, Glenn feels like he’s on fire. He wants to rip Daryl apart. He wants Daryl to rip _him_ apart. 

He breaks away from the kiss and Daryl immediately attaches to his neck. Distracted, Glenn moans and puts his hands in Daryl’s hair. He strokes his hands up Daryl’s chest, just because he can. Daryl _growls_ low in his throat and pauses to bite him, hard, in the juncture between his neck and shoulder. 

Glenn shudders, gasping, and takes a step back. Daryl follows and captures his waist in what seem to be insanely large and hot hands. He tugs him forward and Glenn uses the momentum to push him back onto the couch, studying him for a second before following him down, climbing into his lap. He has to spread his legs wide to get them on either side of Daryl’s, holding onto his shoulders for balance as he settles himself.

Daryl grabs a fistful of his shirt and pulls him down to kiss him again and Glenn knocks his hand away to get to his neck. He groans and slides his hands down to Glenn’s ass, squeezing hard. 

Glenn makes a noise he didn’t even know he could make, low in his throat, and thinks, _Mine_ , closely followed by, _Holy shit_.

He puts a hand on Daryl’s chest and pushes himself off, scrambling backwards until his knees hit the table behind him. Daryl shoots him an annoyed look and moves to stand, presumably to follow him up. Glenn puts his hands up. 

“Seriously, stop for a minute.” Daryl frowns, but complies, sinking back down against the lumpy couch. 

“What’s wrong?” His voice is thick. Glenn just shakes his head, trying to clear it. 

He stares down at Daryl, breathing hard. His eyes are blown black, and he’s got a mark on his neck. _Did I do that?_ Glenn shivers and sits down hard on the table, bringing them back to eye level. Daryl leans forward to put his elbows on his knees, looking at Glenn with a mixture of concern and impatience.

“Well?” Glenn takes a gulp of air and looks away, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. His hat was missing. 

“I just, what’s going on?” 

Daryl blinks. “You’ve never-”

Glenn glares at him, annoyed. “Of course I- I meant with us.” He waves his hand in the space between them. “This isn’t normal, clearly. So what’s actually going on? Because I’m tired of people tiptoeing around me and dropping comments about ‘mates’ and ‘imprinting’ and all this bullshit and not giving me actual information! Like are we supposed to be some kind of werewolf soulmates or is this just a thing that happens sometimes or what?!” 

Daryl groans and runs his hands through his hair. “Why is this such a problem _now?_ ”

Glenn throws up his hands. “It’s a problem because since the trial all I've wanted was to change all the time, I couldn’t focus, I was just... _itchy_. It was driving me insane, and then we started doing...whatever it is we’re doing, and it’s better, but my head is still all-” He waves his hands around in the air. 

Daryl leans back, considering. After a while he frowns, “How old are you?” 

Glenn blinks, caught off guard. “Uh, twenty two.” 

Daryl barks out a what seems to be his version of a laugh. “I meant how long have you been changing for.” 

“Oh. Um, about a year.” 

Daryl blinks, a look of surprise crossing his face. “A _year_?” He gets up and walks around the couch, coming to a stop behind it and grabbing onto the back. His eyebrows furrow. “Shit, kid.” 

Glenn stares up at him, feeling like an idiot sitting on his coffee table. “What?” He’s genuinely confused and a bit annoyed. He really doesn’t need the ‘pack baby’ b.s. from Daryl too. 

“A year, you’re practically a kid. It’s no wonder...” He glances off to the side, frowning and considering the wall in all it’s peeling wallpapered glory.

“Well how old are you?” He asks with an accusatory tone, frowning. 

Daryl quirks an eyebrow at him. “Thirty two. Been changin’ since I was fifteen.” He gives Glenn a critical look. “You’re only a year and that pack of yours is lettin’ you run around on your own?” There’s a hard note of disapproval in his voice that Glenn doesn’t like. He stands up and walks into the kitchen, which in his apartment is basically just a continuation of the room with the addition of a sink and a fridge. Daryl turns towards him, leaning back against the couch and crossing his arms. His fingers drum against them.

“We are. Mates, I mean. Yer right about what happened at the trail.” 

Shocked, Glenn looks up from where he’s putting away the jam. Daryl isn’t looking at him. 

“Oh.” It’s still surprising, somehow. Hearing it out loud. He pulls at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. Daryl shifts, glancing over at him briefly before continuing. “Our kind- It doesn’t happen with everyone, but we tend to just...know. On instinct.” 

Glenn runs a hand through his hair. “And it doesn’t bother you that we don’t get a say? I mean, obviously you could just walk out of here and never come back and I could just never go to the river again but...” 

Daryl studies him quietly for a minute. “No, it don't bother me. I’ve been followin’ my instincts my whole life. And as for yer...plan, it hasn’t exactly worked out for either of us has it? How long did it take you that time by the river to decide to come chase me down?” 

Glenn considers this, still worrying the thread. “It took you a week.” He looks back up, and finds Daryl’s eyes. Eventually, Daryl blinks and looks away.

“Yeah.” They lapse into silence. Glenn shifts and moves to lean on the couch, next to him, radiating heat. Glenn doesn’t know anyone who’s hot like this, not even other Weres, though they all tend to run pretty warm. Must just be Daryl. He leans against his side, lightly, and feels him tense up. Glenn suppress a smirk. _I was in his lap not ten minutes ago and_ this _makes him nervous?_

After a second, Daryl leans in too, and Glenn can’t help a smile. He figures that the Serious Discussion is over for now. 

“How _do_ you know where I live?” 

Daryl snorts. “I own a phone book.” 

“Well I mean you don’t own a phone, so that is pretty-” Daryl jabs him in the side. Glenn smacks back at him playfully, and then frowns. “My address isn’t-” 

“Fucking fine, I called the pizza place you work at from a pay phone and they gave it to me when I pretended to be your cousin.” He glances over at him. “Your fake aunt Ginger is dead by the way. You should probably pretend to be sad next time you go over there.” 

Glenn bursts out laughing, and Daryl smirks. 

Eventually, it starts to get dark so Glenn gathers up what food he’s got in the apartment, which turns out to be jam, half a sleeve of crackers, bacon, three beers, and ramen. The nice thing about Daryl though is that he isn’t picky. Doesn’t even seem to notice that anything is weird about it. 

They’re werewolves though, and therefore both have the metabolisms of three Michael Phelps’. Glenn glances over at Daryl, pacing next to the window as he throws out the trash from the ‘meal’. 

“Want to go for a run? Maybe catch a rabbit or two?” Daryl turns and makes for the door almost immediately, smacking him on the back as he passes, his fingers lingering a little too long to be casual. He scoops up Glenn’s hat, sitting on the floor near the door and sticks it on Glenn’s head on his way out the door.

“Hurry up Chinaman!”

Glenn laughs and follows him out.


	4. Not Really A Joiner

“Oh. My God.” 

“Amy...”

“You look like you were mauled by a sex bear!” 

Glenn sighs and leans against the door frame. It’s what he gets, he supposes, for wearing a tank top in the summer, in Georgia, _in his own apartment._

She scampers into the room, a huge, evil grin or her face and freezes, her nostrils flaring. She whips around so fast she nearly knocks herself off balance. Glenn bites his lip to keep from laughing at her. 

Daryl, on the other hand, has no problem with it. “Looks like you’re not the only one who needs to use their nose.” 

Amy blinks at him, her face turning red. “Um. Hi.” 

He gives her a distinctly unimpressed look. “Hi.” 

Her gaze skitters back over to Glenn, who takes pity on her. “He was just heading out for food, right Daryl?” 

He rolls his eyes but pushes off the counter and grabs his wallet. Amy watches him, wide eyed, the entire way out the door. As soon as he’s out of hearing distance, she whips her head back around and gives Glenn an annoyed look. 

“You didn’t tell me he was so hot.” Glenn scoffs.

“You’ve seen him before, remember?” 

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah well, I was a bit distracted by the crazy drugged rapist guy having his hand sawed off, so, sorry I wasn’t making eyes at your boyfriend.” 

Glenn can kind of see her point, so he goes back to his med school notes, plunking down on the couch and seeing where he left off. He’d gotten a bit distracted, he thinks, feeling a flush creep up his neck as he absently rubs at a spot on his neck he knows has a distinct bite mark, but he still does need to get it done. 

He’d been putting himself through pre-med when he first changed. He’d basically dropped out while he learned to get himself under control and just never returned. Now, he’s considering going back. The summer’s almost over, and Dale had helped sell the school on the whole ‘long term medical issue that’s all better now’ thing, but he’s not sure. 

For now, he delivers pizzas and resists some of his more wolfy urges. 

He glances over at Amy, who’s currently giving the contents of his fridge a critical look. 

“I don’t understand how you live like this.” She straightens, holding his last beer. “Don’t you get hungry?” 

“Um, yeah. That’s why we order out. And we-” He cuts off, coloring slightly. Amy smirks at him. “I. Usually just hunt, for the most part.” 

She blinks at him coyly, her eyes moving over his neck and collar bones. “Well I’m just surprised he didn’t give you a nice good-bye neck bite before he left.” She sinks down onto the couch next to him, crossing her legs primly. 

Glenn rolls his eyes and gives her a wicked smile. “Yeah, well. He’s not all that big on public displays of affection.” 

***

“Glenn.” He turns his head to see Rick, coming down the steps of T-Dog’s porch. He blinks, usually Rick stays until everyone had left and hangs around with whoever’s house it was, and sets the leftovers on the hood of his car. Little known fact outside of the pack, T-Dog is an amazing cook capable of producing _insane_ amounts of insanely delicious food with seemingly no effort, and to a group of seven werewolves plus kids, quantity is nearly as important as quality. 

“Hey, Rick, what’s up?” 

Rick reaches him and gives him a shoulder squeeze. “I just wanted to see how you were. I usually get to talk to everyone in depth at least once every couple of months, but since we don’t use your apartment, and with this Merle situation...” He trails off, glancing off to the side before looking back at Glenn with a tight smile. “I feel like you get lost in the flow of it sometimes, and that’s my fault.” Glenn feels his eyebrows shoot up. 

“No it’s seriously fine, I’m not lost.” He says, and then clamps his mouth shout. _Really Glenn?_ He knows he’s got kind of a hero worship thing going on, but still. He’s not ten.

Rick lets go of his shoulder and leans back onto the car. He looks tired. Glenn kind of suspects that the Merle thing is worse than he was making it sound in the meet. 

Apparently, Merle had been spotted testing the border of pack lands, which is essentially all of Georgia. Technically, all Weres are supposed to conform to The Law no matter where they are, but for the most part, Georgia is where it counts on the east coast. He’d been allegedly seen by a non-pack Were named Nate living on the other side of the state, who had called to report it. Shane was running a check on him to see if anything turned up, and then would probably be heading out sometime in the next few days with T-Dog to assess the situation. 

Glenn had volunteered to go, eager to do something for the pack, but had been shot down. “Not for something like this, not yet.” Rick had said. Glenn figures it’s mostly to do with what Daryl had said about him being like a little kid in Were-terms. He’ll just have to wait to prove himself, but until then...

“So, how’s Daryl doing?” 

Glenn glances over at him and then swiftly away. “He’s ah, good.” _Please don’t ask._

“Did you ask him about what we talked about last time?” 

“Uh.” He’d really, really like to just say he did, and never mention it again, but for some reason it’s actually physically difficult to lie to Rick. Dale had once said that a Pack Leader sometimes has more sway over them than just contractually. Apparently it’s in their blood to obey. Glenn guesses it’s just one of those things. 

“No. Not yet, I-” 

Rick holds up a hand. “It’s fine, I just wanted to know.” He frowns slightly. “Can I ask why?” 

Glenn reaches back to scratch his head absently. “It’s just, he’s been independent for his entire life, his whole family has for generations. Apparently they’ve lived here longer than it’s been a state, like, way back to native, and it’s kind of...” He searches for the right words. “It’s just a weird thing. For him.” 

Rick nods. “Most of the Weres that aren’t either descended from Russia or England are at least part Native.”

Glenn cracks a smile. “Wonder how I ended up with it then.” 

Rick laughs and nudges him in the shoulder “I said most, not all. Asia doesn’t have a huge population, but it exists, and it only takes one person with the genes. Sometimes these things stay dormant for whatever reason until they all of a sudden decide to crop up at random in Korean-American college kids.” 

"You know a lot about this." Rick raises an eyebrow at him.

"Well it is my job. One of them, anyway." 

Glenn laughs and leans back against the car. “But really, I’ll mention it. It’s just...delicate.” 

“And I expect this situation with his brother doesn’t help things.” 

Glenn shrugs. “I’m not so sure that’s got a whole lot to do with it, he's not exactly happy with Merle, but yeah probably a bit. I mean, after what he did...” He looks off to the side, remembering a conversation from a week back that had resulted in a great run but had been pretty stressful. “Daryl’s not the kind of person to forgive that kind of thing, ever. But...”

Rick meets his eyes. “Blood is blood.” 

Glenn nods. “Right.” 

***

The first time they had sex had not been overly successful.

It had been, of all places, in Glenn’s car, and then out in the grass next to a parking lot when they decided that they really didn’t want to be in the car anymore. They had just come back from a run, having decided, a week into what Amy was calling ‘their official relationship’, to venture out farther than they usually went in hopes of more interesting prey, driving out to the Nature Preserve. 

What should have been a hour and a half drive ended up being more like three because Glenn kept having to stop so Daryl could get out. Not that Daryl ever _asked _to get out. He would just look increasingly like he was about to be sick, his eyes getting tight, his mouth set in a hard line, and then Glenn would claim to have a leg cramp, or need to go to the bathroom. They both knew he didn’t, but it worked. Glenn’s pretty sure he’s at least a bit claustrophobic. It would explain the motorcycle, his general dislike of roofed structures, and Daryl’s pacing, muttering ‘can’t see the sky, and the _smell___ , damn idiots’. 

It’s a good run. They chase a mountain lion away from a tree, discover and successfully navigate their way into a cave behind a waterfall, spend the night there, and then run back, catching and sharing a few rabbits on the way. Daryl snags a squirrel right off a tree, something Glenn would try to do himself whenever Daryl wasn’t with him from then on. (He never gets it, _ever_ , but he never sees Daryl do it again either.) 

They get back to the car just as the sun is starting to go down again. Glenn haphazardly throws on his clothes, and climbs in the driver’s seat, leaning forward onto the steering wheel to stare out the windshield. Daryl gets in next to him. “What is it?” He pulls the lever to adjust the seat, but it’s already as far back from the dash as it will go. 

“Check out this sunset.” 

Daryl leans forward, squinting. “Oh, yeah.” He leans back. 

Glenn turns to him, amused. “Not enough for you?”

He shrugs. “I like sunrises better.” 

Glenn studies his face. “Why?” He asks, quietly.

Daryl frowns. “Because...” Glenn finds himself hanging onto every word, and then he shifts forward and accidentally sets the horn off. They both jump. Glenn laughs. Daryl reaches out and pushes his shoulder. “Geek.” He leaves his hand where it is though, curling his fingers around his bicep. 

Glenn sucks in a breath, his eyes darting to Daryl’s mouth, and then back up to his eyes. “I think-” He pauses to swallow, his mouth has gone wildly dry. “I think that this might be the end for us.” 

Daryl quirks an eyebrow at him, but he doesn’t smile. “Yeah?” 

He nods and laughs feeling, ridiculously, nervous. “Sunrises and sunsets. It’s just too big of an issue.” 

The joke falls flat, mostly because Daryl is tugging on his arm and then he’s scrambling to climb into the passenger seat with him. 

They’ve kissed since the time in Glenn’s apartment, about a week ago, mostly in the post-run languid stage when their faces just happen to be next to each other and it seems like the natural thing to do, their brains still operating on wolf logic, but not much outside of that. Now, Glenn is already scrambling to get his shirt back off as Daryl grips his hips with enough strength to bruise, his mouth hard against his neck. It’s the same dizzying intensity that had hit him before, when Daryl came to track him down. He wonders if they’ll always just be like this, suddenly and painfully unable to stay dressed around each other for no reason.

Then Daryl bites down on the same spot as he did before, and Glenn stops caring. 

He grabs Daryl by the hair and pulls him up so he can kiss him, biting him on the lip softly, and then not so softly. Daryl gives as good as he gets, and somewhere in the back of his mind Glenn knows what he’s going to look like tomorrow. Daryl has his hands all over his back, up on his neck, down into the back of his pants, burning Glenn’s skin. 

Glenn moans into his mouth and rolls his hips in Daryl’s lap, who immediately grabs and holds them still, grinding up. 

He breaks off, gasping. “Holy shit.” He realizes he’s still got a hold on Daryl’s hair and lets go, digging his fingers into his shoulders instead, leaning down to breathe harshly into his neck. Daryl’s grip tightens and he pulls Glenn down onto him harder. Glenn tries not to whine, with only minimal success. 

“Gonna’ fuck you.” It’s a promise. Glenn groans and looks him in the face, his head spinning. He notices Daryl’s got his shirt off too, though he doesn’t remember when it had happened. He licks his lips, and watches Daryl follow the motion. 

“Wait.” He says. It’s not a denial, not even close. 

Glenn slides down to the floor, kneeling between his legs, his hands sliding up his thighs. Daryl spreads them so that they hook on either side of the too-small seat, giving him a heated look. Glenn smirks at him and licks his lips again, just to tease. He then bangs his back on the dashboard trying to get Daryl’s pants off. 

“Ow, fuck! Ok, we’re getting out of the car now.” 

They’re so far gone they don’t even laugh about it, Daryl just forces the door open and hooks him by the arm, dragging him out and onto the grass. 

Glenn ends up on his knees, yanking Daryl’s pants down as he leans against the side of the car. He spots something in his hand, it takes him a second to realize it’s his passenger side door handle. He’ll probably be pissed about that later. For now, he’s too concerned with getting Daryl’s dick in his mouth. 

Now, Glenn can count the number of blow jobs he’s given on one hand, but he’s a fast learner. Daryl certainly doesn’t seem to mind, anyway. He fists a hand in Glenn’s hair, grunting as Glenn licks his way up and then back down the shaft, pausing to give his balls some attention before he put his mouth on him. 

Daryl growls in the back of his throat and puts his hands in Glenn's hair, stroking and pulling. For some reason, this sets Glenn off more than anything else, and he moans around his cock, his hands sliding up his thighs and gripping hard at his hips. They’ll have the same marks tomorrow. 

Daryl pulls him off, sliding his hand down his neck and trailing his fingers over his mouth, his eyes blown black. 

“Got any slick?” Daryl asks, breathing hard. 

Glenn gives him a look. “What, in the car?” 

Daryl scowls and pulls him up, evidently not appreciating his _totally legitimate_ sarcastic question. He wraps an arm around Glenn’s waist and kisses him, hard. Glenn pushes against him, sliding a leg in between his thighs as Daryl moves his hand down to stroke him and he suddenly doesn’t have enough brain cells to be an active participant in the kiss anymore. 

He breaks off gasping, and he feels Daryl move to smirk into his neck, licking the bite mark. He shivers and then takes a step back, pulling Daryl with him by some seemingly magnetic force. Daryl follows him down onto the grass, immediately grabbing hold of his hips. Glenn slides his hands up his shoulders, wraps his legs around his waist, and flips them. 

Daryl’s eyes go momentarily wide and Glenn grins down at him, sliding his hands over his chest, scratching lightly. Daryl pulls him hard against him by the hips, bringing their groins flush together and he laughs throatily. 

“I feel like we’ll figure something out.” 

He leans down and...

An ear splitting shriek rings out and Glenn jumps, falling off of Daryl and into the grass. He scrambles up, whirling to face a pale faced woman, clutching a duffle bag like it’s her last link to this world. Daryl growls and pushes himself up, and for a moment Glenn has the naive thought that there’s no way he can possibly get made at _her_ for this-

“Can’t anybody in this world mind their own damn business?” He glares hard at the woman and crosses his arms over his chest. It’s a protective gesture for Daryl, but Glenn figures the woman probably doesn’t see it that way. 

Impossibly, she gets even more pale, and then goes red. “I’m not the one having- exposing myself in a public parking area!” Her voice shoots through three octaves and cracks at the end. Glenn hopes she doesn’t pass out or anything. Though if she did, he would totally know how to handle that. He’s kind of getting back into the whole medical thing. 

She doesn’t. Instead she engages in a few more seconds of her and Daryl’s screaming bitch fest, which Glenn can respect, you know, it happens. Probably more often to Daryl than to most people but it’s whatever. She storms off, leaving Daryl behind, who rolls his eyes after her, looking annoyed. It’s too much for Glenn, and he collapses back down into the grass, laughing. Daryl gives him the look that says he thinks he’s a crazy person.

“We best leave before that lady comes back with a cop.” Daryl says, and Glenn agrees, but he's laughing too hard to stand up. By the time he manages, the woman actually _is_ on her way back and he has to scramble to get in the car and out of the parking lot. Daryl keeps his mouth shut but gives him a look that can’t be interpreted as anything other than ‘I told you so.’

He stops a few miles down the road so they can get dressed. It’s still a public place, but it’s dark enough at this point that he figures it’s fine. Unsurprisingly, not all their clothing made it back into the car with them, so Glenn borrows Daryl’s shirt, since he’s pretty sure there’s a rule somewhere about driving without a shirt in Georgia, and just goes without underwear. Daryl actually seems to have managed to retain most of his clothing, with the exception of a shoe. He doesn’t have underwear either, but he doesn’t believe in it, so that makes sense. 

They make the drive back in comfortable silence. Daryl goes to sleep, so Glenn just keeps on going until they get home.

It’s an interesting first time, to say the least. They do better at having sex the second time around, not two hours later, back at Glenn’s apartment. By the time morning rolls around, Glenn figures they've gotten sufficient practice as to be considered experts. Three hours after _that_ , Amy knocks on the door and puts the phrase ‘mauled by a sex bear’ in Glenn’s vocabulary, something Daryl would later hate her for. 

***

Glenn’s tracing patterns onto the skin of Daryl’s chest, thinking to himself, sometimes following scars, sometimes not. It’s a fucking hot day, even for Georgia, but at least the worst of it has passed. They’re laying out in the grass behind Daryl’s house in the shade of a big white oak. Clothes had been too much to deal with after their run. Glenn thinks he probably wouldn’t have even bothered to change back if he hadn’t been covered in thick, heat absorbing fur. It was too hot to be interested in sex even, something Glenn would not have previously believed, given their track record of the past few weeks. 

“What is it?” 

Glenn stops and glances up to his face. “Sorry?” 

Daryl’s got one eye cracked open, watching him. “I can practically hear the gears in your head grinding. What’s the problem?” 

Glenn shifts so he’s leaning on one elbow. “Who says there has to be a problem?” 

Daryl crosses his hands behind his head and closes his eyes. “You’re doin’ that thing you do when you want to say something, but don’t actually want to say it.” 

Glenn blinks. “I have a thing?” Daryl doesn’t respond. After a while Glenn begins to wonder if he’s fallen asleep again. He lays back down and pulls absently at the grass. 

“Rick keeps asking me to talk to you about joining the pack.” He feels rather than sees Daryl opens his eyes and turn to look at him. He keeps looking up through the leaves of the tree. 

“Fuck no.” 

Glenn glances over at him. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I told him. Without the 'fuck'." 

Daryl shifts and picks up a stick, throwing it off to the side. “Tell him to mind his own business.” 

“He’s just-” 

“Just sticking his nose where it don’t belong. He tell you to ask me ‘bout Merle too? Prolly' just wants to keep an eye on me, case I’m harboring the fugitive.” He’s starting to sound pissed. “Or, maybe just wants another mutt to add to his collection.” 

The silence stretches. Glenn’s tempted to let it drop, but can’t ultimately. 

“I don’t think that’s it.” Daryl turns to look at him, annoyance evident on his face. 

“Yeah?” His voice is dripping sarcasm.

“Yeah. I mean, he wouldn’t...consider anyone to join if he thought they might be dangerous to the others. He probably wouldn’t have even let me come back here after the first time if he thought that. He just wouldn’t.” 

"He wouldn't _let_ you?" Daryl’s giving him a considering look. “Yer pretty defensive of him.” He mutters. 

Glenn glances over at him. “Jealous?” He asks, trying to lighten the mood. Daryl gives him a death glare and Glenn laughs. 

“Rick’s a good leader. He watches out for us. And...” He squints up towards the sun, remembering. “I’m not sure where I’d be if he hadn’t taken me in.” 

They lapse back into silence, though Glenn can feel that he wants to ask. They never really talked about their histories much. Really all Glenn knew about his was that his family had been Were since the beginning, through his father’s side, and that he’s lived in the same house his whole life. He tries to think of what Daryl knows about him. That he started changing older than usual, his family’s Korean, and that he’s in the pack might be it. 

Eventually, after so long Glenn’s almost drifted off, he does. “You lived with Grimes?” 

Glenn blinks his eyes open and stretches. “Yeah, he took me in when I was...adjusting.” 

Daryl’s looking at him, confused. “You had a rough first change?”

“I didn’t know I was a werewolf.” Silence. 

Glenn looks up to see Daryl staring at him, his eyebrows furrowed. After a while he says, “Oh.” 

"Yeah, oh." Glenn smirks and sits up, looking down at him. “I was just wandering around Atlanta in the middle of the night, feeling like I was going to crawl out of my skin. I been having the dreams-” Daryl nods. “-and couldn’t stand to be inside. I thought I was losing my mind.” He looks off to the side.

“I physically ran into Shane, who I guess was on patrol or something because it was like three am. He made some excuse to get me ‘arrested’, I don’t really remember much about it. I think he just said something, I was so strung up I’d have probably attacked him for looking at me. I figured he was just racist or something, but then he took me into this residential neighborhood instead of the station.” 

He trails off, staring off into the woods. Daryl clears his throat. “He brought you to Rick?” 

Glenn nods. “Right. I was losing it. I guess I was about a day away from it at that point. Rick stuck me in the basement, tried to tell me what was going on.” He laughs. “I seriously thought I’d been abducted by a cult or something. I mean, werewolves don’t _exist _, so clearly they were crazy.”__

Daryl snorts and Glenn pokes him in the arm. “Hey. It was the rational thing to think, even if I wasn’t in the most rational state at the time. Werewolves didn’t exist.” 

“So?”

“So then I changed into a wolf and kind of had to start believing them.” Daryl laughs. Glenn smiles down at him. “I lived in their basement for like, a month.” 

Daryl gives him a look, his hand curling into a tight fist. “They kept you in the basement?” 

“Well I mean I was kind of freaked out by the whole thing and couldn’t control my changes. I didn’t leave their house for another month after that. Rick was really good to me. I mean, I was his responsibility and I know that, but he did more than he had too.” 

“And then you were a part of the pack.” Daryl says, his tone sarcastic. 

Glenn rolls his eyes. “Yeah basically. Rick gave me a choice though.”

"Sure.” 

“No really.” He says, in earnest. “He sat me down and went over everything that it would mean, everything that I’d be accountable for. I chose to stay.” He shrugs. “It’s the right place for me.” 

“And now Grimes wants to think it’s the right place for me too.” He says, annoyed. 

Glenn hesitates. “I-” Daryl gives him a look. He goes on anyway. “It could be.” Daryl opens his mouth but he presses on. “I’m just saying that you don’t know. It’s a good system. We aren’t solitary animals.” He teases, trying to lighten things up. Daryl doesn’t respond. 

Glenn sighs. “‘We take care of our own’. That’s what Rick said to me...you could be our brother too.” 

Daryl glares at him. “Glenn...” 

He puts up his hands. “I know, I’m done.” He lays back down, carefully not touching Daryl, who’s tense. 

After a while, Daryl speaks again, which frankly surprises Glenn. “I’ve been my own for my whole life, even when Martin was around.” Martin was Daryl’s father, Glenn had never heard him call him anything else. 

“It’s not bad, having an alpha, I mean. Rick tells me-”

“He tells you what to do, and you have to do what he says.” There’s contempt evident in his voice. 

Glenn blinks. “It’s just part of the deal. It keeps things from getting out of hand.” 

Daryl snorts. “If he told you to kill someone, would you?” Glenn looks at him sharply. Daryl stares back, challenging. 

“I-” He stops, not wanting to answer with really thinking about it. Daryl doesn’t look away, and neither does Glenn. “I think so. I mean, I’m kind of supposed to say yes without question, but... I’d kill for the safety of the pack without even, I don’t know. It would just be automatic I guess. But if he told me to kill like, a little kid, no I don’t think so.”

Daryl's eyes narrow. “You don’t _think_ so?” 

“I wouldn’t.” He says with conviction, his face heating. “I don’t think Rick would tell me to do anything really...wrong anyway. It’s part of why I’m with them. They’re not- they protect people.” 

Daryl snorts. “So long as they’re living within Georgia state lines, sure.” 

Glenn can’t resist a glare. “Well yeah, don’t the police watch one specific area? Doesn’t the army-”

“But there aren’t packs in every state. Things are great if you’re in Georgia, but you can’t tell me that Grimes don’t know that Merle is out there raising the same kind’a hell he was raising here, only it isn’t in _his_ backyard, and now I aint’ even there to contain the worst of it.” It’s the most Glenn has heard him talk about his brother in...ever. He doesn’t sound bitter, just...flat. Clinical. 

He’s not looking at him anymore, glaring up at the tree, and Glenn studies his face. “Why didn’t you...”

“Go with him?” 

He nods, not sure he wants to hear the answer, which is just as well, because Daryl never offers one. 

It starts to get dark and Daryl mentions that it smells like it should rain soon. It does. They stay out, just letting it cool them off. Glenn even falls asleep for a bit before Daryl shakes him awake and prods him in the direction of the house. 

They wander inside and up the stairs, Glenn snags a towel to get the worst of the mud off of himself as a basic courtesy before collapsing into the bed. Daryl doesn’t bother, sliding in next to him, hooking an arm around his torso and pulling them flush together. Glenn sighs and settles back into him, drifting off. 

They wake up to someone banging on the front door. 

“...the fuck?” Glenn stirs at the sound of Daryl’s voice and cracks one eye open. It’s light out, but just barely. Daryl is sitting up about a foot away, (cuddling is nice in concept but not so much in practice when it’s ninety degrees and Daryl is a literal furnace) his hair sticking up at the back, glaring in the direction of the banging. Glenn puts his face back in a pillow and hopes whoever it is will just go away. 

Daryl gets up, muttering about ‘his property’ and ‘should’a put up a bigger sign’. He wrenches the door open and starts down the stairs.

“Pants, Daryl.” Glenn calls out, absently. 

“It’s my own goddamn house!” 

Glenn figures that’s a fair argument and goes back to sleep. 

...Only to be shaken awake by Daryl less than a minute later. He jerks up. “Whatsit?” Daryl’s glaring down at him.

“They’re here for you.” He sounds pissed. Glenn still isn’t processing anything. He sits up, confused, because they don’t get visitors and- 

He smells them both at once. Oh. 

He glances up at Daryl, guilty. “I don’t know why-” 

Daryl walks into the bathroom. “I don’t care, just get rid of them or I will.” 

Glenn swings his feet onto the floor and looks around for pants. He finds some, not his, but he figures it’s the same difference, and pads down the stairs. 

Andrea is standing in the front room, looking around with blatant curiosity. She looks up when he walks in, her face splitting into a smirk, albeit a strained one. “You uh- might want a shirt.” 

He glances over at the cracked mirror on the outside of an old wardrobe that had apparently belonged to Daryl’s great-great whatever. He’s covered in marks, not really surprising, given Daryl’s fondness for leaving them. He shrugs. “Why, am I going somewhere?” There’s a tension in her face that tell him he probably is. 

She nods. “We’ve got a situation. Rick’s called a meet, his house, asap. Shane’s waiting out there.” 

Glenn tries and fails to stifle a yawn. “Ok, I’m coming.” 

He takes the stairs two at a time, his brain starting to catch up with it’s surroundings, and almost runs into Daryl, who catches him by the arms. He dressed, and giving him a look that Glenn doesn’t have time to decipher. He glances over at the clock, 5:17. 

“You leavin’?” 

Glenn finds a shirt that actually belongs to him and pulls it over his head. “Yeah I’ve got a thing- Pack thing.” He can’t find shoes. Like, not even shoes that don’t go together. He goes without, making a b-line for the door. Daryl’s gone, he notices. 

The yelling cues him into his location. 

“Well I wouldn’t have to be on your property if you owned a damn phone!” He moves faster, just in time to see Andrea walk into view, her face pinched. She shoots Glenn a glare. “I’ll be outside. Hurry up.” 

Glenn glances into the front room and sees that Daryl must have gone back to the kitchen. He follows and finds him angrily pulling food out of the fridge. He glares when Glenn walks in. “Bitch started it.” 

“I believe you.” He grabs a piece of bread and stuffs it in his mouth. “I’ve got to go, see you later.” Daryl doesn’t look at him, so Glenn figures he’s in a mood and turns to leave, snagging one more piece of food. 

“Glenn.” He’s almost to the front door, and turns, surprised to see Daryl had followed him. They stare at each other for a minute, and Glenn kind of really has to fucking go, but he doesn’t want to just leave. “Um. Yeah?” 

A car horn sounds and Glenn winces. “I promise this won’t happen again.” Daryl rolls his eyes. 

“Just- be careful.” 

Glenn blinks. “Um. Ok-”

The horn sounds again and Glenn shoots him an apologetic look before swinging out the door and running down the steps to where Shane’s squad car is stopped in the grass. 

He gets in the back. Shane shoots him a glare. “Bout time. Christ, I know you’re his bitch or whatever but....” Glenn ignores him, turning to look out the back window. Daryl is standing on the front steps, watching them, his hands in his pockets, scowling. 

Andrea starts outlining the situation, something about the guy Nate who’d reported Merle and a group of rogue Weres, but Glenn has trouble focusing on it as they drive away. 

He’s got a sinking feeling in his gut and a deep wish that Daryl was coming with him to whatever this is.


	5. A Change of Plan

“Any Were you find on Pack Lands that isn’t one of us is to be considered highly dangerous and reported immediately. Do _not_ attempt to engage anyone on your own. From what Shane’s gathered, Merle isn’t acting alone. He’s got at least three others, including the one that originally called in.” 

Next to him, Glenn feels Amy shift on the Grimes’ couch. She raises her hand. Lori gives her a look, but Rick nods. 

“Is T-Dog ok?” 

Rick touches the rim of his hat. He’s still in his uniform, clearly just off duty. “His life is not in danger. He was attacked, and injured. If he was just a normal man he’d probably be dead, but as it is he’ll make a full recovery, maybe by tomorrow. We’ve taken him over to Hershel’s to do that, and he’s staying over at the farm until this is over just in case they have visitors.” 

Amy nods, looking relieved. Hershel and his family are solitary, but still have many dealings with the pack, including medical attention in exchange for protections and their own land. As a general rule, the pack doesn’t go to human doctors except in the most extreme cases. Something in their blood is apparently a marker for what they are for those who know what to look for, and a curiosity for those who don’t. Glenn’s glad that T-Dog is staying to look out for them. They might not be family, but they were still good people. He even considers Maggie a friend, though he doesn’t know her well. 

The doorbell rings, and Shane looks over at Glenn. He rises to get it, figuring it must be Carol. Technically, they’re not supposed to go anywhere without one of their brothers until the situation is handled, but he figures that inside Rick’s own house it’s sort of pointless. 

He checks the peephole anyway, just in case. It is Carol, holding Sophia’s hand tightly in hers, a frown etched onto her face. He gets the door open and leads them inside, giving Sophia a soft smile which she does not return, looking nervously around the entryway. 

He follows them back into the living room, stopping to lean against the door frame. Amy stands and takes Sophia’s hand from Carol, smoothing down her hair and telling her that she liked her t-shirt, which features a smiling, sequined cat. Sophia doesn’t seem appeased, her eyes following her mother out of the room, and doesn’t look away from the door until she reappears, Carl and Lori in tow. They’re all going back to Carol’s apartment, which is in the middle of the city. Unless one of the rogues decides to break in during the night, they should be pretty safe. And even if one did, part of the reason Lori is going is to look out for them. 

Glenn averts his eyes from where Lori and Rick are saying goodbye, and ends up meeting Jim’s, who after a second comes over to lean beside him on the wall. Shane is talking strategy with Andrea, while Amy speaks softly to Carol on the opposite side of the room, and hand on her arm. Glenn’s not sure where Dale went. 

After a minute, Jim speaks, surprising him. “If anything happens to those kids...” He scowls at the ground, his arms crossed. Jim’s voice is strained, made harsh from disuse. Glenn suppose that using your vocal chords for nothing but barking and howling will do that. 

He's not sure what to say, so he just makes an affirmative noise. Jim seems to accept this and they settle back into silence, watching the others until finally, after Carol and Lori had left and Dale had shown up, Rick announces, “Alright, let’s head out. You all know your partners.” Six nods. 

Glenn meets Andrea’s eyes briefly on the way out. She’s his partner and they’ll be doing a search of the general surrounding areas and keeping watch. Amy is going with Dale into the city to see what they can find in their first shapes, tracking by rumor rather than scent. Rick, Shane, and Jim would be ranging out and doing a more targeted search. Glenn can’t help but wonder if they’ll end up near Daryl’s. Probably. 

Rick and Jim change first to run the perimeter, leaving Shane behind to protect them in case of an attack. The rest of the group is supposed to wait five minutes and then follow. It's a good plan. It’s also amazing how fast things can go from totally on track to complete chaos. 

He’s about halfway through his change when he spots him, half a second too late. _Need to learn to use your nose._ The words flicker through his head as Shane, in the form of a two hundred and something pound wolf throws himself at Daryl, just coming out from the tree line, his human eyes widening slightly before he throws himself to the side. Shane barely misses him. He won't the next time. 

Glenn doesn’t think, doesn’t even really remember moving, or finishing his change. All he knows is all of a sudden he’s on Shane’s back, having knocked him away from his mate in mid air. His _mate._ They roll, growling and snapping. It's nothing at all like the play fights he has with Andrea or Jim. He’s all blind rage. There’s nothing else left of him as he snarls and tries to rip out his brother’s throat. 

That is, nothing else until the pain. 

Shane’s got his teeth fastened on Glenn’s front leg, having knocked him down and pinned him. All the range in the world isn’t about to make Glenn strong enough to stop him, but he still tries, struggling and trying to uses his back legs to push him off. All of a sudden, the teeth are ripped off and out of him and Glenn’s laying on the ground by himself, listening to the sounds of snapping teeth and growls. 

He rolls and jumps up, but immediately drops, his front leg unable to support him. Daryl and Shane are rolling around on the ground, a blur of dark and light colored fur. Now, Daryl might be stronger than Glenn, but he certainly isn’t stronger than Shane, who might as well be an faster version of a bear in this shape. Glenn tenses to spring, to protect his mate injury be damned when a loud bark rings out in the yard and he jerks to a stop. 

_Rick._

Shane freezes for a split second, enough for Daryl to escape from under him, and drops to the ground, his ears plastered to his head. Daryl puts himself between him and Glenn, his teeth bared. Shane ignores him. 

Glenn limps over, his eyes fixed on Rick, who’s standing a few feet away, his hackles raised, glaring down at them all. Glenn wonders vaguely if he’d smelled Daryl or if someone had gotten him. Judging by the mud splattered on Andrea’s blonde fur, it was probably the second. 

Shane whines and tries to move towards him but Rick whips around and snaps at him, his lips pulled back from his teeth. The others are all standing in a loose semi-circle behind, all changed except for Amy, who’s all the way in the back, her hand raised halfway to her mouth like she was going to cover it but then forgot. 

Rick seems to give Shane some sort of signal, because he slinks off and into the woods. He turns to follow, giving Glenn and Daryl a look that can’t be interpreted as anything other than, ‘I’ll deal with you later.’ Glenn whines and Daryl leans into him slightly. He pushes against him, forgetting his injured leg, and jerks back. Daryl nudges him with his nose, glaring. He blinks at him, unsure of what he wants him to do. Daryl glares harder and jerks his head towards Amy, who’s cautiously moving back towards the house, Andrea dogging her heels, still in wolf form and shooting them looks. 

Glenn gets it and starts to move off to the side to change, but Daryl steps on his tail, effectively stopping him. He whips around gives him an annoyed look. Daryl pushes down harder and glares, the expression odd on him in this form. Generally, he's in a better mood as a wolf. Glenn snaps at him but nods, trying to make his annoyance clear. _Fine then._ He doesn’t usually like changing right in front of people, but whatever. He can be the adult here. 

Daryl lets up but waits until he’s fully standing on two legs to make his own change, his gaze flickering around the yard, keeping his eyes on the other members of the pack, most of whom have either changed back or moved off. Glenn is kind of uncomfortable with the idea that he seems to think that he needs protection from his own pack. _Though,_ he thinks, glancing at his arm, which is still bleeding, _he kind of has a fair point at the moment._

He looks back up to see Daryl crouched, back in his human shape. He opens his mouth to say something, he’s not sure what, but Daryl cuts him off with a glare, rising smoothly and taking hold of his arm. He studies it, his face concerningly closed off. To the left, Jim paces back and forth, watching them. 

“It’s not that bad.” It’s apparently the wrong thing to say. Daryl grips his arm tighter and Glenn fights the urge to protest. He’s pretty sure he heard something crack when Shane bit down. They’re fast healers though, he’ll still be ok to go out. 

Daryl gives him a look like he knows what he’s thinking and starts pulling him in the direction of the woods. 

Glenn digs his heels in. “Wait. I can’t- I need to stay here.” Daryl freezes. Glenn can’t see his face, but all his muscles tense at once. He hopes that he doesn’t try to pick him up and take him anyway. They’d get about ten feet before Jim took them down. 

After an indeterminable amount of time, he turns around. “Fine.” His voice is totally flat. 

“Good.” It’s Rick, stepping out of the trees, Shane at his heels, both back on two legs. Shane’s face is hard, and he gives Daryl a look as they pass that makes Glenn want to attack him again, that same dark heat spreading through him. Daryl gives his arm another squeeze. 

Rick directs Shane inside and turns to face them. “I’ll deal with you two later. Get in the house. Jim, go with them.” 

They go. 

***

“-a goddamn residential neighborhood! What the hell were you thinking?” Glenn winces and tries not to listen, though it’s hard when he can hear everything in the house most of the time anyway and Rick is yelling. 

They’re in the basement, the same place Glenn had lived for most of his first year. Not much has changed, the bed is still there, the door is still steel (strong enough to contain a wolf), but now Daryl’s down here with him, sitting silently and giving his arm a thorough check. Jim’s down with them too, acting as their watchdog, seemingly asleep in the corner. Glenn doesn’t doubt that he’d be on them in two seconds if Daryl tried anything though.

When he gets out the medical supplies, Glenn blinks, surprised. “Oh.” 

Daryl’s eyes flicker up to his and back down again. “What.” 

“Nothing I just- I didn’t know you knew how to treat injuries.” He finishes lamely. 

Daryl snorts. “I lived with my brother, how d’ya think I lasted all this time if I didn’t know how to take care of myself?” He taps his own bare chest, which is covered in scars, but now that Glenn really looks at them, they’ve clearly been taken care of. They're not all from fights either, but he'd known that already. 

“Aint’ no one gonna take care of you but you and ‘yers out there.” He says, carefully applying a bandage to Glenn’s arm. Glenn watches him. He kind of wants to lean over and kiss him, but figures that it's not really the time. He focus back on his arm. It hurts a bit, but then, Glenn has different standards of pain than most people, rearranging his bones and tearing through his skin every other week. “There, should be fine by tomorrow.” 

“And here I thought I was the medical one.” He says, shooting for an expression that isn't a glare. Daryl just gives him a stern once over. 

“Yeah well, don’t be such an idiot next time.”

Glenn’s still inspecting it. “Yeah I know you’ve already yelled at me remember?” 

Daryl’s glare intensifies. “Glenn.”

He looks up. “I’m not apologizing. You were unchanged, he would have killed you.” He runs a hand through his hair. “What the hell were you doing anyway?” 

Daryl’s glare falters, and his eyebrows furrow. “What d’ya mean?”

“I mean why weren’t you changed? You know we’re on high alert.” It’s not what he really wants to ask, but it can wait for later. Daryl gives him a long, considering look. 

Finally, he raises his hand to his mouth, rubbing at the nasty bruise there that’s already starting to fade. “You never go onto another Were’s property changed. It’s considered a challenge.” He leans back in his chair. “I expect that second in command up there’s gettin’ a strip taken outta his ass for jumpin’ me in the first place.” 

Glenn blinks. “Oh.” It was like when they’d went for the trial then. He chooses not to bring that up though. He’s not about to risk stressing him out when he’d just started to stop being all silent and possessive. They’d been in the basement for about an hour and Glenn had just convinced him to let him sit in his own separate chair so that Daryl could look at the bite. 

Glenn wishes he knew what was going on with the rest of them. He’s pretty sure that Dale and Andrea are out doing the perimeter thing, but other than that he doesn’t know anything. 

Opportunely, Amy chooses that moment to poke her head through the door. “Um. Rick says he wants you guys to come up. Jim too.” 

Glenn glances at Daryl, who slowly stands and walks towards the stairs. He shoots Amy a comforting smile that she doesn’t return, watching Daryl warily. He sighs and follows, listening to the click of Jim’s nails against the wooden stairs behind him. 

She leads them into the back room, where Shane is already leaning against the far wall, his arms crossed. He's got a black eye, and Glenn wonders which of them gave it to him. He knows the three scratches running along his side were from him. Shane gives Glenn a sharp look before turning his whole attention to watching Daryl, who puts himself between them with his back to the wall. 

Rick enters through a different door, looking strained, and Glenn feels a wave of shame, though he knows he probably couldn’t have prevented any of this. Something in him still wants to kneel at Rick’s feet though, tell him he’s sorry. It's like an itch going up his back. He fusses with the hem of his shirt instead. Rick pauses next to where Glenn and Daryl are standing and gives them a long look. “Sit.” He says finally, indicating the couch. 

Glenn moves over to it automatically, shooting Daryl a look. After a moment, he joins him, settling so that their legs touch, his face stony. Across from them, Shane snorts and Glenn feels all of Daryl’s muscles tense. 

Rick sits in the chair opposite to them, his back to Shane, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees. “Well?” 

Impossibly, Glenn feels Daryl tense even more. “Well _what?_ ” He winces. Shane glares, baring his teeth. Rick just continues, his expression neutral.

“Why are you here?” 

Daryl doesn’t respond, glaring over at Shane. Glenn glances between them, then opens his mouth, but Rick silences him with a look. 

“Daryl, I know you didn’t come here to make trouble-”

“Make trouble? It was yer boy that-”

“I know. He was out of line.” His neutrality starts to erode there, Glenn can hear it in his voice. Behind him, Shane’s still watching Daryl, but frowning slightly. “We don’t have time to deal with that now though, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

They sit in heavy silence. Glenn wishes he could do something for it, but it’s not up to him. Finally, Daryl speaks. “Merle’s my brother.” 

Shane’s eyes narrow. Even Glenn’s not sure where he’s going with this. 

“The way I see it, it’s my responsibility to protect people from ‘im.” 

Glenn blinks, surprised. Rick just nods. “An’ I suppose you want to offer to help us out here?”

Daryl nods, stiff backed. Rick leans back, giving him a critical look. “Why?”

“What d’ya mean wh-”

“I mean why now? You were there when they came to pick Glenn up, an’ you must have had some idea of the reason, but you didn’t go. What happened to change your mind?” Silence. Glenn sees Rick glance over at the clock. “We’re on kind of a tight sched-”

“He showed up at my house, ‘bout an hour ago.” Shane’s head whips up from where he’d been glaring at the floor. Daryl glances over at him and then back to Rick. “He was with two others, wanted me to join up. Said they was goin’ to ‘serve justice’.” 

“And you weren’t too keen on that.” 

“They’ve killed people already. I could smell it on em’.” He looks Rick right in the eyes. “They need to be stopped. An’ not jus’ here neither.” 

Shane barks out a laugh. “Oh come on, he’s clearly with them. They’re probably waiting outside. Hell, why didn’t you attack em’? You don’t look like it was any sort of trouble, gettin’ away.” 

Daryl glares. “You think I’m fool enough to attack three grown men by myself?” 

Shane laughs and shrugs, running a hand over his shaved head. “There’s a lot a’ things I think about-”

“Shane.” 

He puts his hands up. “Rick I’m just sayin’ he might be with them. Look at it, he’s his own _brother_ for Christ sake.” 

Someone growls. Glenn realizes it’s him when Daryl nudges him with his knee. Rick stares at them for a moment before nodding. “We have to consider that.” 

“ _What?_ ” Glenn cries, dismayed and furious all at once. 

“Glenn.” Rick glares at him and he quiets, his eyes narrowing. Indignation and just this side of rage burns through him. He tries to clamp it down, telling himself that it’s because of the too-short change. He doesn’t actually want to kill Shane. Really.

Rick shifts in his chair “Are you looking to help track this group down or just give information?” 

“I’m not lookin’ to join yer pack if that’s what yer-”

“I’m not. Though if we do let you help you’ll have to agree to a probationary status for the time being. Abide by all the Rules.” He look him straight in the eye. “Follow direction.” 

Glenn can actually hear Daryl’s jaw clench. The silence stretches. Glenn glances at him. He wonders if he’ll leave. He wonders if he’ll follow him. He can’t imagine walking out on the pack, but he also can’t imagine letting Daryl walk out without him, not with Merle out there. It churns in his stomach, making him sick.

“Fine.” 

Glenn blinks. “What?” 

“ _What_?” Shane pushes off the wall. “Rick you can’t be serious. He’s not-” Rick holds up a hand.

“Shane, go get the others, tell them we’ve got some new information and we need to rearrange teams.” He looks back at Daryl. “He'll be comin’ with us.” 

***

It’s cold out. Even with his higher than average body temperature Glenn wishes he’d grabbed a jacket or something, if only to stop people staring at them for walking around in short sleeves. 

“That’s it.” Glenn looks. Then looks again to make sure it’s the place she meant. 

“Nice place.” He says, not bothering to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Amy shoots him a look. He ignores her, on edge. 

After Shane had brought the others, Daryl had grudgingly gone over everything that had happened. Which basically amounted to Merle and the henchmen being generally threatening and creepy, but also dropping the name of a bar they were planning on using as a ‘hunting ground’ for the evening. So Glenn and Amy were on their way. 

Andrea (and Daryl, though mostly through scowling) had expressed very loud disapproval of the plan initially, but even she had to admit that they were unlikely to attack them in front of other people. Hunting didn’t mean changing into wolves on the dance floor, it meant picking up ‘dates’ and taking them out to the woods, never to be seen again. The whole idea, which Glenn has to say makes sense, is that if one or both of them are there, they would have to exit the bar in human form. And in this case run right into the friendly ‘dogs’ named Jim and Andrea waiting behind the building. Glenn and Amy were there to provide incentive. Meanwhile, Rick, Shane, and Daryl would be searching the woods for trails and Dale was heading over to Carol’s to double up their protection. 

Glenn frowns harder. He’s under no illusions that the reason he earned the honor of this particular job was not ‘because he looks that part’ but rather because they think he’s too injured and inexperienced to fight. Which is fine. It’s probably true. He kicks a bottle over and looks at the frankly shitty building in all it’s dilapidated glory. 

“I feel like a lot of murders take place here already.” 

“It’s a lot better inside, come on.” Amy says. Glenn rolls his eyes, completely unsurprised she’d been before. She hooks her arm through his and pulls him forward, swaying her hips. Jim and Andrea are jumping alleys somewhere behind them and watching their backs, having been deemed the ones that look the most like dogs. 

The doorman sizes them up as they approach. Or at least sizes up Amy’s breasts, barely contained in what is more a glittery bra than a shirt. They don’t have much trouble getting in. 

He feels Amy stiffen slightly not ten steps into the room. “Smell that?” He nods, scanning the crowd. 

“Yeah. At least one of them’s here.” He catches himself looking for just the face from the photo. He wishes he knew what the rest looked like. Daryl knows, but he’s out with Rick, hunting for Merle. He fights down a wave of irrational anxiety. _He can take care of himself._ Glenn should focus on doing the same. 

Amy’s earrings jingle when she turns to him, shooting him a quizzical look. He shakes his head and moves on to the bar. She slips down onto the stool next to him, smiling at the bartender and ordering ‘just beer, please.’ 

They sit and drink for a few minutes, scanning the crowd. Judging from the scent, Glenn's pretty sure it's just the one. Which makes their lives easier. Amy leans in close to his ear. “Check out the bathroom then watch me from the back door? I’ll sit here and look desirable. See if we can’t catch our fish.” She shoots him a coy smile as he hops down, leaning back against the bar. 

He makes his way through the waves of people, keeping an eye out and more importantly, using his nose. The other Were is around, he’s sure of it. Obviously, whoever he is, he knows they're there. They're playing the ‘young, naive members of the pack go out on their own to challenge the big bad guys to prove themselves’ card. Amy would be really obvious ‘bait’, alerting the rogue to their presence. Then, Glenn would heroically challenge him to a fight, ignoring his dramatically bandaged arm, (clearly a sign of internal unrest in the pack that would have led him to this poor choice), leading him out back for their showdown. At which point he would get acquainted with Jim and Andrea and become the Pack's new favorite source of information. He glances back at Amy, who’s being chatted up by what seems to be a skinny sixteen year old. Glenn mentally discounts him but then catches himself. Either way, Amy can take him. He keeps on to the bathroom. 

It reeks, unsurprisingly, but not of werewolf. He frowns but nods to himself, heading back out the door. 

“Hey!” He stops short, narrowly keeping himself from crashing into a woman with very long hair and a very short dress. She glares down at him. “Sorry.” He says distractedly, trying to catch sight of Amy through the crowd. He finds her, still in the same place, now talking with the bartender, her body slightly turned so that she can still see what’s coming for her. She catches his eye and winks. 

Satisfied, Glenn turns to head for the back door. The angry woman has left and- 

He freezes. _The woman._ He scans the crowd again, frowning. “Stupid, stupid.” 

Their man could very well be a woman. He turns and heads back towards the bathrooms, this time adding a sway to his walk and pushing open the women’s door instead. He takes a deep breath. _Bingo_. He thinks, frowning. They'd counted on their man being a man. Not that a woman can't be tricked by the same scheme, but what was she doing here? 

Two girls make indignant noises at the sight of him, straightening up from doing what looks like lines on the counter. He stutters and fumbles and acts generally drunk to get out without having something thrown at his head. The little one looks like she might bite him. 

He backs out of the room, thinking that he needs to get to Amy immediately, and walks right into a bouncer who grunts and gets a good grip on his arm. “Uh-”

“You wanna explain that?” He nods at the bathroom door. Glenn looks him over while blinking slowly and pretending to drunkenly catch up with what he’s saying. He’s big, but not outrageously so. Werewolf strength and all, Glenn could probably take him, but that would hardly be conducive to keeping a low profile. And they need to find the woman. 

“I just really need to pee.” He makes cute eyes at him and the guy lets him go with an eye roll, pushing him towards the correct door. “Don’t make me talk to you again.” 

Glenn shoots him a fake drunk salute and stands right inside the bathroom door until he figures the guy is gone, mentally mapping out the building. Two floors, one for dancing and a smaller balconied one up the stairs. The fact that she’s here and not the two goonies might mean that they knew they were coming and knew they’d expect two guys. It might mean that Merle knows Daryl sold him out. Unease creeps up Glenn’s back and he reminds himself that he’s with Rick and Shane. He needs to focus on the woman. 

More than that he needs to get to Amy and figure out what to do, because they definitely need a change of plan.


	6. Brothers and Sisters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is, 6 months later. I’m really, really sorry. Seriously though I have nothing to say for myself other than I didn’t expect the semester (or the summer) to be this crazy. To anyone still reading this, thanks for sticking with me here. (:

Glenn waits as long as he’s able, his blood pumping through his body like hot water. He checks his watch, takes a deep breath to steady himself. Eventually he just figures that if the bouncer’s there then he’s there and leaves the bathroom, tracking the room slowly. At least he knows what he’s looking for now.

The music is louder somehow, the colors sharper. He can feel the base through the floor, all the way down to his fingertips. He curls them into fists and tries to focus on getting to Amy when all his body wants is to change, to hunt. 

_You’re in a room full of people._ He takes a steadying breath, half to calm himself, half to try and find the woman, and heads back to the front to find Amy and make a real plan. Then they can get her. 

He takes two steps onto the floor and looks up right into her face. 

His entire body locks down. She’s staring down at him from the balcony, one hand wrapped around a delicate glass containing a drink that’s a color that doesn’t occur in nature. He glares at her automatically, his eyes narrowed. She smiles and raises her glass to toast him. 

He opens his mouth to say something but stops when he realizes she can’t possibly hear him. She leans against the rail, the sequined dragon on her shirt flashing in the technicolor lights and mouths ‘what?’.

Red is starting to creep into the edges of Glenn’s vision. It’s probably lucky that someone chooses that moment to collide with him, effectively capturing his attention and giving him a second to think, to override the part of him that wants to jump straight up from the floor and take her down, to destroy the threat to his pack. It doesn't stop him from pushing the man away though, hard enough to collide with another dancer. He staggers back, away from the man who’s starting to pick himself up off of the floor, looking mad enough for a real fight. Glenn puts people between them before he gets his chance. Raw as he is, Glenn could obliterate him. He would. 

He has the errant thought that he’ll just save it for the woman instead, and stops himself. _Play the part, don’t live it._ The pack can’t afford for him to lose it now. 

Propelling himself through the crowd is simple with enough motivation, and he’s pretty well motivated. He makes it all the way to the stairs before his brain catches up with itself and he remembers the plan, and why exactly the plan is the plan in the first place.

He jogs to halfway to the top of the stairs to the second floor and scans the room for Amy, spotting her easily, right where he left her. She’s still chatting up the bartender. He glances over to where the woman is still regarding him with vague amusement, a few feet up and to his right.

He digs out his phone. Texts, ‘stairs’, and waits the required few seconds for the bits of code to go from one phone to another while his heart continues to pound in his ears, slightly off tempo from the music.

It doesn’t take long for Amy to be looking right at him and then at the woman when he points, trying and probably failing to be subtle about it. She glances at him and then back to the woman again, who waves. Amy narrows her eyes, sliding smoothly off the barstool, still pretending to be on the phone. Glenn waves frantically for her attention. 

“Don’t come up here!” He yells down to her, earning himself an affronted look from the kid passing him on the stairs. He ignores him, his eyes on Amy, who doesn’t appear to have heard what he said but seems to have gotten the message anyway. She jerks her head towards the woman and Glenn nods, pointing at her and then to the door. She closes the phone and shoots the woman one last look before making her way back to the front, hopefully to guard the front door.

The hair on the back of Glenn’s neck stands up, and turns to face the woman who’s giving him a look can can only be interpreted as, ‘well?’ He nods at her and finishes climbing the stairs.

It doesn’t take long to get to her, the landing is packed but there’s an empty circle three feet around her in all directions. He wonders if she did something or if they understand on some intuitive level to stay away. When he gets within jumping distance she turns from where she’d been surveying the crowd to look him up and down.

“My goodness we are young.” Even at this distance, Glenn can barely hear her over the bass. But he’s not about to put himself within arms length of if he can help it. She rolls her eyes and when she smiles at him, it’s a slow spread across her face. He glares, trying to put on some overconfidence and looks her right in the eyes. A challenge.

“You aren't supposed to be here.” 

She doesn’t look away from his eyes either. “I know.”

He takes another step, trying to decide how to get her down and out the backdoor. If he should stick with the original plan or not.

Finally, his blood won’t let him stand still anymore. He steps forward, into her space. Her smile deepens. Predatory. Glenn thinks they’d be on pretty equal ground, if it came to it. 

“I want to challenge you.” It sounds convincing, probably because it’s true. She laughs.

“Not even gonna buy me a drink first? I’m Rowan by the way, not that you ask-” She waves the drink she already has and Glenn smacks it out of her hand, grabbing her wrist in the process. As he closes his hand around her wrist, he realizes that he hadn’t meant to do it at all. She leans over the rail, across both their arms to watch the glass fall and presumably smash. Glenn just keeps watching her, testing the strength in her arm.

Her eyebrows shoot up. “Well, then.” 

“You’re on Pack lands, I want-”

“To lead me out to some secluded area where your little girlfriend will be waiting? Or maybe your entire pack?” She makes a click sound. “Oh honey, I don’t think so.”

Glenn just stares at her. He tries to readjust, to come up with something to say, but all he can hear is his own blood rushing, drowning him out. The woman, _Rowan_ , leans towards his face, looking into his eyes. They’re the exact same height.

She smirks. “But then maybe you just are that stupid.”

“You-” It’s getting a bit difficult to talk, he realizes.

“Feel like you’re gonna change sugar? You look it. Now how would they like that, your pack? Not very much I would guess.”

She’s right. He realizes it with a jolt, glancing down at his own hand wrapped around her wrist. The joints have started to shift.

He loosens his grip but doesn’t let go, trying to talk and calm himself down at the same time. 

“Why are you here?” She raises an eyebrow at him.

“Me? I was just minding my own business. You’re the one causing the trouble.”

He glares and tries not to focus on how badly he’s messing this up. _Save it for later._ He thinks, glancing around the room. They’re starting to attract attention. He should let her go. He doesn’t. 

“The pack and I don’t agree on everything, they think I’m too young to fight. I’d like to prove them wrong.” 

She rolls her eyes. “Sweetheart, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” She reaches out to ruffle his hair with her free hand and he grabs her arm, twisting it. She frowns, and Glenn thinks he can see a hint of pain in her eyes behind the annoyance. 

_Come on Rowan_ , he thinks, _teach me a lesson_.

“Hey!” 

It’s a voice Glenn recognizes, though he can’t remember why until he turns and sees the bouncer from before. He glances back at Rowan and knows immediately by the look on her face that he isn’t getting out of this. _Shit._

The man draws even with them and gives Glenn a hard look. After a second Glenn remembers to drop Rowan’s arms. 

“Uh-” 

“Get out.” 

He glances over at Rowan, who had moved behind the bouncer as soon as Glenn had let go. She winks and casts an exaggerated glance in the direction of the front entrance. He bares his teeth, and hopes it passes as a smile to human eyes. 

The bouncer looks like he’s about to lose the last of his patience, so Glenn turns without another word and makes for the stairs, listening to Jane say that she would _love_ a ride home, it just wasn’t safe for a girl to walk home alone anymore. Glenn frowns and keeps going. “Buddy, you don’t know the half of it.” 

He wonders if the bouncer will make it home at all, or if they’ll find his body in the woods somewhere in a few days. Either way there’s nothing he can do. He doubts he can reasonably go out the back with the bouncer watching him, so he makes a beeline for the front.

He practically runs out the door, narrowly missing a kid having a fight with the doorman over his presumably fake ID. He barely notices them, distracted by the way Amy _isn’t there_. He jogs around to the back of the building for good measure. No Amy. 

Taking a deep breath, he tries to focus on catching her scent, but can’t, his mind going in circles. She must have had a reason, maybe she’d smelled something, or maybe Jim or Andrea had picked her up. Regardless, Jane was probably not leaving until morning at this point. 

‘Stupid, stupid.’ Glenn runs his hands through his hair, pacing back and forth. He’d fucked up. They should have actually _talked_ about the new plan. Rowan would have waited, she’d wanted to make fun of him, to distract him. 

He lashes out, fist colliding with metal. The the shock of it helps to clear his head, gives him something else to catch his attention. He takes a deep breath and concentrates on finding Amy, missing the way control came easy to him before for a moment. 

He finds the scent and sets off after it around the other side of the building. _She must have gone to warn Jim and Andrea_. He follows it, trying not to run or otherwise attract too much attention to himself. The trail leads him right into the middle of downtown, still pretty crowded despite the hour. Still pretty chock full of smells too. 

He thinks he can smell what lead her away though, and it’s definitely werewolf and definitely not someone they know. It’s faint now though, fainter than Amy’s, and he isn’t that good of a tracker. He can’t smell Jim or Andrea anywhere either. “Shit.” He glances around, hoping for a clue. If he could just track one of them he could- 

“Glenn!”

He whirls to see Daryl leaning out of an alley, wearing a pair of sweatpants several sizes too small for him that he clearly stole off of a clothes line and nothing else. Ten feet down, a woman crosses the street to avoid him. Glenn hurries over.

“What are you-”

Daryl grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him into the alley. He gives him a hard once over, his jaw clenched. Glenn shakes him off. “I’m fine, Amy-” 

“We tracked them. Come on.” He turns and Glenn falls into step behind him automatically, jogging to keep up.

“It’s a woman, the one from the bar, I think Amy went after her trail or one of the others while I was tied up in security but I’m not sure where they went.” His skin is tingling like he’s about to change and he fights the feeling down, taking a steadying breath. It doesn’t help much. He digs his nails into his palms instead, and keeps running. 

“Jim and Andrea?” 

“Had to go, the woman was a distraction.” 

Sometimes Glenn hates being right. They weave their way through alleys and parking lots, finally coming to a stop behind an abandoned gas station. He takes it in, smelling Jim, Andrea, and Amy for sure, and at least two others. He studies the ground, grass trampled by at least four sets of paws, trashcans knocked over, the harsh smell of blood, and while he certainly isn’t up to Daryl’s level he can still spot clear signs of a recent fight. 

“What happened?” 

Daryl circles the area, studying the ground and finally dropping down to his hands and knees to catch the scent. Glenn glances around to make sure no one’s watching, despite the location. 

“Headed back out to the house firs’ to pick up the trail-” He pauses, focusing on the scent and Glenn takes a minute to appreciate the fact that Daryl had apparently led Rick and Shane back to _his_ house and what that meant about how serious he is about the situation. 

Daryl stands, jerks his head in the right direction and they take off again, this time into the woods. Glenn expects them to change immediately, but Daryl goes on. “We tracked them as far as the city, and then Merle took off on his own. We followed him ‘till his trail got washed out by all the traffic, but picked up the other two in the woods and tracked them to that station. They were gone, Rick an’ Shane went after them, and sent me to pick you up.” 

“Amy must have picked up the same trail as Jim and Andrea.” Daryl nodded his agreement, and, having concluded business, shifts into a wolf while running. Glenn skids to a stop and makes his own as fast as he can, vaguely aware that he’s leaving shreds of clothes all over the place. He runs after Daryl, who had paused at the top of a hill to wait, but sets off again once Glenn clears it. Glenn runs as fast as he can, relief coursing through him at the sensation of rightness that comes with changing, and at the thought of Amy meeting up with Jim and Andrea. 

They follow the trail as it leads them deeper into the woods, looping and zigzagging around hills and trees, as if someone was trying to shake off a tail. Though it’s impossible to tell who had been the chasers and who had been chased, at least to Glenn anyway, he focuses on it. He figures it can’t hurt to try, and when they lose the majority of the trail in the river, he does manage to help them pick up where Andrea and Jim left. 

The trail winds up taking them all the way back to the city, and Glenn can feel the agitation rolling off Daryl, crouched next to him in the shadow of a building. He can also smell that they’re close, probably not five minutes away from the rest of the pack, though whether or not they’d captured others he can’t tell, they’ll have to get closer. 

Which means they have to cross the street. 

Glenn considers the scene. There aren’t too many people out, but there are enough, and there are cars. He glances around, wondering how the others managed. Maybe they had changed back? He tries to decide if it’s lighter out than it was before, though it’s difficult with his current state of vision, which is much worse as wolf. He decides that this is morning traffic, and it just wasn’t as busy as it is now. They must have been out all night. Either way, they have to make a decision. They can either cross as wolves or as naked men. They share a look. Wolves it is. 

Glenn lets Daryl head out of their shadowed spot first, but sticks close to his heels. He glances around the street. No one is looking at them. So far so good. 

He checks the street, trying to act natural. There are no cars, but they had ended up right at a crosswalk. He tries decide if it’s weird for them to use the crosswalk or not. He can’t remember ever seeing a dog do that, but they were supposedly smart animals right? 

Eventually he decides to just go for it, because surely deliberating at a crosswalk is a weirder thing for two dogs to be doing than just using it to begin with. 

He starts forward at a fair pace, just a dog doing it’s thing, not looking to freak anybody out or attract any attention, but is stopped mid step by a tug on his tail, causing his feet to trip up and send him sprawling on the sidewalk. He whips his head around to see Daryl standing over him, holding his tail in his mouth. Glenn glares, trying to communicate, ‘now is not the time for your shit’ through growling. Daryl is unfazed by this, and actually goes so far as to give his tail a sharp tug. Glenn growls softly and takes a quick look around to confirm that, yes, they’re now attracting the attention of the entire street, and now there are cars coming, which had probably been Daryl’s main concern to begin with. 

A few people, including a woman who unfortunately appears to be waiting for the next light with them, look distinctly nervous. Glenn considers just running away really fast so that they don’t get the pound called on them, but they really need to not get hit by cars, so they need cross at the next light, weird dog behavior or not. They’ll just be smart city dogs who know what’s up. 

He decides to just be as cute and unthreatening as possible until the light turns red again. He also decides to stand in front of Daryl because he is neither of these things. 

He lets his tongue roll out and makes what he hopes translates to a friendly expression on a dog. The woman, who had backed up almost all the way to the building behind them, visibly relaxes, lowering her shoulders from their hunched position. The rest of the street seem to lose interest around the same time, so Glenn counts it as a success. 

But then the woman starts to edge closer, hand outstretched, and he reevaluates that assessment. 

She leans down and puts her hand down in front of his face, fingers curled into a loose fist. He glances over at Daryl, who is giving him a look that can only be interpreted as, ‘are you kidding me with this?’ and, figuring he didn’t really have another option, leans over to smell the woman’s hand. He thinks this might be the longest light he’d ever had to sit though. 

She makes a kind of cooing sound and says something that Glenn can’t be bothered to concentrate on to understand, more focused on the soft growl Daryl lets out when she pats Glenn’s head, and prays that it’s too low for her to hear. 

She can probably see him baring his teeth though. To compensate, he does that head tilt-one ear up thing that dogs do and it seems to work, except that it encourages the woman to touch him more, which in turn leads to Daryl openly growling at her. He had never been very good at controlling his impulses as a person, let alone as a wolf where the instincts are so much closer to the surface. Normally, Glenn would just let him be. 

Normally, as in when there isn’t a woman with a hand in her purse, looking like she’s preparing herself to pepper-spray a dog in the face if she has to. 

Glenn tries to surreptitiously glare at him while also trying to check the light and not freak the woman out. This is a highly complicated process requiring the kind of higher level reasoning he has no problem with as a person, but as a wolf is damn difficult. 

He turns, and a bark, loud and unmistakable rings out over the street. Glenn whips towards it, automatic, barely registering the gasp the woman lets out and barely stops himself from running out into open traffic. 

It’s Jim, standing on the other side of the street. Glenn feels relief so strongly at seeing his pack brother it’s almost a physical sensation. As soon as Jim sees them see him, he turns and disappears back into an alley, so fast Glenn nearly misses him go. Next to him, Daryl nudges his side meaningfully. 

The cars haven’t stopped yet. They go anyway, the woman forgotten, weaving and dodging between them. 

It takes less than five minutes after that to track the pack to the far alley they had hidden in. Jim meets them at the mouth, and Glenn notices blood on one of his paws and a bit on his mouth. He whines softly and sniffs the air, though the scents are so mixed up he can’t tell how many there are and from what sides. 

Glenn spots Shane first, standing on two legs over what he assumes is a body, but he reconsiders this evaluation when it groans and tries to sit up. Shane kicks it, his expression dark. 

Glenn feels himself relax, but something in the air is bothering him, though it probably shouldn’t. The fact that Shane’s even in his human shape means that the immediate danger has passed. He pads along next to Daryl, both still on four legs. Glenn knows they’ll have to change back soon, if only to get the information, but he finds himself strangely reluctant, not quite willing yet to relinquish the strength of it. 

He looks around, noting at least two bodies in various states of completeness, probably Shane’s work. Amy and Andrea are apparently still out, or maybe back out again, they’ll have to wait to ask Rick. 

Shane walks over and says something that Glenn misses, still smelling at the ground, trying to make sense of the sensory overload. _‘Rick’s blood, or blood Rick spilled?_ It’s hard to tell, and he itches to see Rick, to verify that he’s ok. 

Daryl nudges him, recapturing his attention and starts to change. Reluctantly, Glenn follows suit, his dislike for changing in front of others less important in light of his impatience. 

“Rick want’s to see you both.” Shane calls out. He seems strained, but Glenn ignores it, focused instead on the confirmation of their leader’s obvious survival, the fact that they’re all ok. 

Standing now, they move to the end of the alley, coming out of the space between the two buildings. They’re right next to the forest again, and he spots Rick crouched beside a dumpster, staring down at something. 

Next to him, Daryl jerks to a stop, cursing. Glenn frowns.

“Rick, what are you-” 

But then his brain catches up with his nose and eyes all at once and he recognizes her. 

_No._

He can vaguely hear Rick asking Daryl if they’d seen Andrea anywhere, but quickly loses the vein of the strained conversation. 

“Amy.” 

The sparkles of her shirt glitter in the light, mostly from where they're spread all over the ground. Glenn finds himself staring at them, maybe so he doesn’t have to look at her face again, which has the same shocked look she gets when her expectations don’t- _didn’t?_ \- line up with reality. He fights down something, though he doesn’t know if it’s tears or anger or something else. 

She has around five or six bites, including one that ripped open her stomach, but it’s clear that it was a knife that killed her, judging from the blood spilled down her front from where her throat was cut open. She also has strange cuts all along the inside of her wrist that he can't make sense of.

“He tried to take her hand.” 

He looks up, _up? when had he moved to the ground?_ , at Daryl and blinks, uncomprehending for a second. Had he asked a question? Then he comprehends what he said and the anger hits. 

“What- How _dare_ they- A _knife_ -” He breaks off, shaking with the effort of not screaming and ripping through his skin again, though he can’t remember why it matters anymore. He slams one of his hands down onto the ground so hard he hears a crack though he doesn’t feel anything. Everything is in hyper-focus. He feels like going after Merle himself. Taking Rowan down. 

People are talking, and maybe Andrea is back, he can’t really hear them. He turns and realizes that Daryl is gone but Jim is next to him now, on all fours and at eye-level. He must still be on the ground. Jim bumps Glenn’s face with his nose, human eyes staring at him from a wolf’s face. Glenn notices that he has his hand twisted into the fur of his back, which has to hurt. 

He has to concentrate to unlock his fingers, but he does it. Jim whines sharply, the sound distinct and painful to listen to, and lays down next to him. Glenn wraps one arm around him, still shaking, and turns to look for Daryl, who’s already staring at him, his expression dark, though Glenn knows it’s not directed at him. They stay like that, the anger slowly draining out of him, leaving him weak, until Shane barks at them to get up, that they have to move. The message goes through, but it’s like everyone is a bit slower, a bit off. Daryl walks over and hauls Glenn up, leaving his hand on his shoulder even after they're already walking over to Rick. 

From what sounds like very far away, Glenn can hear Andrea screaming.


	7. Blood is Blood

The sound and power of their paws beating on the forest floor reverberates up Glenn’s legs and he chooses to focus on that alone, letting the rhythm carry him forward through the trees.

Daryl is at his side, thundering along next to him as they race follow Rick’s lead. Glenn can’t help but feel like he’s being chased. Like there’s eyes all around them. It puts him on edge, and so he willfully concentrates on other things. The mission. The best path through this particular stretch of forest. How he’s going to rip Jane apart when he gets to her.

Keeping his mind directed where he wants it is a lot easier as a wolf, a fact which he’s very grateful for at the moment.

They pick up the pace, keeping to Rick’s heels as he takes them around a sharp bend. It’s the long way around to the Dixon residence, but they’re absolutely avoiding the city this time. It hadn’t even been a discussion. There is a reason that rule stands. Maybe if they hadn’t tried to bend it, Amy would have been a wolf when Merle found her and would have gotten away. It’s a harsh thought to consider, one that Glenn has been studiously avoiding since they found her.

He doesn’t remember much about returning to the house. He has vague impressions of being pulled to his feet and getting orders, of running back to the house with Shane to get Rick’s car to load the bodies and pick up the rogue, but that's it beyond some hazy memories of helping strip down the scene of evidence. Of feeling distantly grateful that he seems to be able perform adequately under strained conditions.

They put the one Shane captured in the basement, tied to a chair. Glenn thinks he may have helped handcuff him. He definitely stayed back while Shane went out to get Lori, Carol, Dale and the kids. He remembers hearing Sophia cry.

He remembers digging the grave, and watching her being lowered into the ground, covered up with dirt. They had rolled a boulder far too big for a normal man to move over the spot and left it there. No words were said over it, and Glenn hadn't wanted to, not then. He couldn't afford to think about it. The hole was just a hole. The body was just a body until they were done with what needed to get done. It couldn't be any other way. Andrea had simply walked back to the house, back straight and silent with Shane following three steps behind.

They cut a sharp turn around a gully almost in unison. It's easy to sense the intention behind Rick's every more now, to move with one purpose as one entity. The more Glenn allows the wolf take over and simply do what he already knows, the easier it is to let everything else fade. So he lets it happen, feels only the power in his muscles propelling him forward and the wind on his fur. They move with one mind, tracking their prey deeper and deeper into the woods.

***

“Alright” Glenn looks up at the sound of Rick's voice. He has dark circles under his eyes, his mouth set in a hard line. The room is completely silent, had been since they'd been called in. The only sounds in the house are the ones coming from the basement. 

“We head out as soon as the sun goes down and Shane gets back with the others.” From the floor by his side, Glenn hears Jim whine softly, back in his preferred shape. He reaches down and draws his fingers through the fur of his head, quieting him. Usually he would have been required to stay in human form for the duration of the planning, so Glenn supposes he must have gotten special permission. Or maybe he had simply retreated back into the shape he was most comfortable in out of stress. Maybe Rick understands that he has an easier time seeing the world this way now. 

Glenn wishes he had that excuse. To slip into the simple logic of wolf life where everything is straightforward. Eat. Sleep. Take care of the pack. The clear communication between them. It’s no wonder Jim chose it over television and having to talk to people. Together they had dug Amy's grave, working silently side by side. Glenn had been grateful that he hadn’t had to do it alone. He hadn't wanted to do it at all, but everyone else had a different task, something else they had to do. 

“The absolute goal in this operation is Merle Dixon, but you do not break rank, you do not go off on your own, and you do not engage with a rogue without backup, do you understand?” 

Glenn gives a tight nod, casting a glance over to T-dog, newly returned and stoney faced at the news. He wonders if T blames himself for not being there with them last night. 

The door to the basement opens and Glenn looks over to see Daryl enter the room with Andrea behind him, sending a meaningful look Rick's way.

Rick nods towards the back door, directing them out. They'd been interrogating their guest for the past hour or so, and Glenn can see blood on both of their knuckles.

“Ok, get some rest and be ready to go when the time comes.” Rick turns and heads out the door and into the back yard.

Glenn tracks Daryl’s progress across the room, on the way out the door. He catches his eye and holds it for a second, feeling that creeping sensation he associates with changing go up his spine. It’s almost like before, right at the start of it all when he’d felt like he was losing his mind. Trying desperately to reach him without understanding why. 

He turns away, half afraid that he’ll do something stupid like jump up and run out the door and keep running. Daryl would follow, and they’d be away from all of it. They could go anywhere, live in the woods and forget about everything else.

Daryl wants it more than Glenn, he can see it in his eyes. So he turns away to keep them from taking the easy way out.

They hadn’t really talked since they’d found her. Glenn forcibly pulls his train of thought in another direction. He supposed they’d exchanged information on the way from the bar to the rest of the group, but it had been a while since they’d talked without other people around.

Rick’s basement, but even then it had been in the middle of everything and there is really no talking to Daryl when he’s wound up the way he was. Glenn glances down at his almost totally healed arm and scowls. Maybe if they had gotten there sooner, Amy would have survived. Back in the club, if he hadn’t-

He takes a sharp breath. He can’t deal with this now, he knows. Can't afford to lose the near numbness he had managed to scrape together in order to get through the next few hours, maybe the next few days.

Daryl. He’d been thinking about him and Daryl and how they hadn’t had time to talk since yesterday.

Or really, not since before this hell had all started, when they had laid under the big tree in Daryl’s yard and talked about the possibility of Daryl joining the pack- or the lack of one. He shoots a quick glance over to where he can see Andrea and Daryl through the window, talking with Rick.

 _Maybe it’s not such a long shot after all._ He thinks, but when Daryl turns to watch Rick walk back to the house Glenn sees that his face is hard, his hand curled into a tight fist.

_Or maybe it will just push him even farther away._

***

They’re ready. The rogue Shane took down had turned out not to be the one who had attacked T-Dog. That one, Dave, had been a lot smaller and probably smarter, since he’d had the sense to get away when the going got good. When Glenn had left the basement, he still hadn’t said anything, so they had taken to referring to him as Not-Dave. He had probably owned up to it eventually, he’d had Daryl working on him for long enough. Certainly long enough to give them everything they wanted to know about Merle’s operation, probably hoping that they would trade his life for it. But he had clearly been involved in what happened to Amy. 

Not-Dave is not alive anymore.

They press close together, racing through trees all passing at once in a blur. The formation is off. Glenn has the sudden realization that it always will be, now. Even if they find another to fill the empty space the balance will always be off somehow. He jumps over a boulder without a thought, and lands next to Andrea. He can feel the heat coming off of her, the near-tangible anger and deliberately directs his attention to nothing.

Numbness is a much more comfortable state than rage.

They stop in a clearing, and it takes Glenn a moment to realize that it’s the same one they’d used months earlier when they came for Merle the first time. Things were so different. He was different, he realizes, watching Rick stand back up on two legs naked and vulnerable in his human shape. 

He stifles a whine. This had been the part of the plan he had disagreed with the most, but as Dave had said a thousand times before, the law is the law. And the law says that they need to meet Merle on his terms, which in this case means human. 

Rick straightens and picks up the black pouch he’d carried in his mouth. “Alright.” He says, pronouncing the word carefully and slowly. Even so it’s difficult it catch. 

Andrea stands next to him, gooseflesh dusting her skin now that she can feel the cold. Glenn suspects she’s won the honor of assistant to stop her from jumping the gun and tearing up the first thing she sees move once they get there. Not that they aren’t going for an execution. 

Rick pulls a gun from the pouch and checks the chamber. “No one breaks rank.” He meets each of their eyes to make sure he’d been understood. “Good. Let’s go.” 

They move, two people ringed by five wolves, near silent now, completely on alert. They give the house a wide berth, keeping to the tree line. In the end, it doesn’t take long to find them. In all likelihood Merle had been waiting for them there all night, nestled back in the woods behind his childhood home, surrounded by the sly shadows of his companions. 

Merle looks up when they come into the light of the clearing, though of course he already knew they were there. He says something that Glenn misses completely, not in the right frame of mind at the moment for that kind of focus. 

He has this metal thing attached to the stump of his arm, and though he can’t quite make out the exact shape of it, Glenn’s pretty sure it has a knife attachment. Nearby, Glenn feels Daryl’s muscles lock down, and he resists the urge to go to him, to push his nose into the fur of his shoulder and comfort him, telling himself that it wouldn’t actually be helpful. 

He looks up. Rick is brandishing the gun, talking fast. Maybe he just can’t tell, but Merle doesn’t look overly worried, like maybe he has a plan to escape. But then why even show up? He could have left yesterday. He could have stayed away altogether. 

The wolves behind Merle circle slowly, and them Glenn can understand, so he watches them instead, wondering which ones would stick by for the fight if Rick got Merle fast. Not very many, if the assumed nature of rogues is anything to go by. 

He traces the movement of one in particular, slightly smaller than the rest. Certain aspects of human expressions carry through as wolves. Looking into her eyes, Glenn could swear he sees Rowan smirking at him behind those teeth. 

It puts him even more on edge, and Daryl must feel it because he shoots him and warning glance and all of a sudden Glenn gets it. Through the haze of slow wolf thinking and adrenaline he has a sudden burst of understanding.

It’s Daryl. Merle is staying for Daryl, not to get revenge on the pack. He wanted to punish him for not standing with him from the start. He isn’t trying to get away at all, what would he do if he did? Live as a wolf on three legs? Glenn focuses hard on Merle’s expression and decides he’s right. 

_Blood is blood._ Glenn thinks, and Merle’s blood had defied him. How would Merle handle this? It must be the reason for Rick’s stalling. 

He doesn’t have long to wonder though, because at that moment the wind shifts and they all turn at once to the tree line in time to see three more wolves, each black and massive, sprint into the clearing and head straight for them. 

The pack has about five seconds before they’re on top of them, long enough for Glenn to turn and drop into a crouch and hear Rick yell something. Then they’re there. 

The fight is chaotic, instinct driving him and stopping him from attacking the wrong people. As soon as the three strangers had landed their targets, the others on Merle’s side of the line joined in as well. Later, he’ll think about that fact that Rick and Andrea were there and in human form, supposedly protected. At the time though, he was completely unaware of anything outside of the small circle around him that encompassed everything he could kill and that could kill him. 

He dodges one of the big black ones only to be knocked down from the side. The body on top of him snarls and he gets one good bite before she’s leaping off and tearing away from the group, into the trees. 

_Rowan._ He rolls to a crouch. One part, a very small part, of his brain is telling him not to go, to keep formation and help the others. 

He runs after her, half following and half tracking her scent- she’s already far ahead of him. They tear through bushes and streams and probably make enough noise to scare away every living thing within a five mile radius. Or attract it, in the case of dumb humans. 

She’s teasing him, he realizes after an undeterminable amount of time. Weaving through clusters of trees and leading him in circles. It sends a surge of indignation through him that she would do this when he’s busy trying to kill her. 

He runs harder. 

Up and over a hill, under that tree, through places he thinks he might recognize, she keeps leading him forward. Trying to tire him out? He’s too full of fire for it, angry over Amy and scared for Daryl and Rick and Jim and for the fact that killing her won’t fix any of it. 

Any time he tries to cut her off she’s one step ahead of him, turning the other way or changing direction completely. It’s almost like the old games of chase he played, back before three days ago when everything was normal. He doubts if he’ll ever play them again. 

They clear the trees suddenly and it takes Glenn a second to realize that the structure they’re running towards is Daryl’s house. It’s enough to trip his brain up for a second, and consequently give her the lead she needs to streak right under that hole in the porch.

He’s not a big guy, but he’s bigger than Rowan, especially as a wolf. He tries to squeeze into the space anyway, getting his head and front paws in before nearly getting stuck and pushing himself back out with his hind legs. He paces back and forth, vaguely aware of his own whining and growling. 

It’s the only hole in the fencing around the entire perimeter, Glenn knows this because he knows this house. It’s _their_ house. He sits down hard, glaring. She’ll have to come out sometime. 

A second passes and it dawns on him that he should probably find the others. Should never have left in the first place. He whines, worry starting to creep up his spine. 

He’s distracted from this by the sound of boots on wood. 

Glenn jerks his head up and looks right into the face of Merle Dixon. 

***

“It looks good.” 

Glenn breathes in and out, looking out into the trees. Dale stops just short of him.

“It’s a funny world when we’re teaching kids to dig graves, but at least you know how to do it right.” 

Silence. Glenn isn’t sure if he doesn’t want to talk or if he just doesn’t know what to say. Behind him, Dale saves him from deciding. 

“You know, I’ve known the girls for a long time.” He pauses. Glenn can feel him watching him, trying to gauge his reaction. He doesn’t give one. 

“Amy never liked being the youngest.” He chuckles softly. “Always trying to prove herself, never liked being left behind for things.” 

There’s a squirrel in the tree next to him, so Glenn stares at that, watches it flit from branch to branch and thinks about a wolf grabbing it right off the trunk. Tries to let his mind wander. 

“She really felt close to you, I don’t know if you-”

Glenn whirls and plants his feet so he won’t launch himself at one of the people he feels closest to in the world. Focuses on not doing something stupid _again_. So much harder than it used to be, back when his senses were dull and he didn’t have to power to anything anyway. 

Dale just looks at him calmly. 

“Why-” He stops, determined not to let anything show in his voice. He takes a short breath and holds it. 

“I can’t do this right now.” 

Dale nods and takes a step towards him, letting Glenn close the rest of the distance. He does, looking off towards the house where he can see Rick on the phone through the glass of the door. 

“He’s never had to deal with anything like this before, has he?” 

Dale follows his gaze and nods. “The pack has faced some situations like this in his time, but never as a leader. This is his first, and it’s a bad one.” 

Glenn frowns. “I guess- maybe I always thought of him as invincible, you know, since he took me in. I’ve never been in a pack without him.” 

He looks away, thinking. Maybe he’d been hero-worshipping him. Putting all his stock in the _idea_ of Rick, the all powerful protector. 

He glances back at Amy’s grave. 

Dale makes a sound like he’s about to say something. In all likelihood he was sent to bring Glenn back inside for the meeting, but Glenn beats him to it. 

“It was a knife.” 

He can feel Dale checking his face before responding at length. “Yes. It was.” 

“He shouldn’t have done that.” Glenn turns to look at Dale directly. “It’s...dishonorable.” He finishes lamely, aware of how ridiculous he must sound. How young. 

Clearly Merle had not been concerned with the Rules for years, though this was one that most refused to break to avoid seeming weak, or too human. Using human weapons to kill another wolf is akin to paying someone else to do it. No honor, no pride in the kill. 

Glenn stares at the unmarked dark patch of earth that contains what’s left of his friend. His sister. 

“Let’s just go back inside.” 

He turns, not waiting for a response. From a second floor window, he catches Andrea watching him. 

***

Everything stops for a dead second. Glenn feels his body lock down, a growl building deep in his throat. Merle turns and spits, the gun in his hand glinting in the moonlight. 

“Well now, if it isn’t the bitch.” 

Usually, human speech takes a certain degree of concentration to comprehend in this shape. They really aren’t meant to understand it, and it’s only due to their familiarity with language that they can understand what they do. 

Hyper aware as he is, Glenn gets every word. 

His first instinct, a human instinct, is to back up, to put distance between them as quickly as possible. Unfortunately this motion, while easy for humans, is highly complicated to execute on four legs. 

Merle laughs, and the sound of it ruffles Glenn’s fur. He let’s the growl he’d been holding on to loose, planting his feet. 

“What’s the matter doggie?” Merle grins, waving the gun. “You scared of lil’ old me?” 

Glenn snarls. He feels no fear, and stands ready to rip Merle to shreds, the man who had killed Amy. The one trying to get back at Daryl- to kill _his_ Daryl for doing the right thing. He’s ready to throw himself at this weak, human man and tear him apart. End it. 

The rational part of his mind tells him this is exactly what Merle wants. Teeth and claws won’t do much against a bullet in the brain, and memories of training, of a lifetime of watching movie deaths and a crossbow inches from his face take hold and he lets the growl loose, finally turning to run. 

He hears Merle’s shout and swerves the side, heading for the forest, hoping the Merle will follow him to where he’ll have the advantage. 

Something connects with his side, a powerful force that Glenn thinks at first is Merle tackling him, but will later link to a bullet dug out of his flank. He goes down hard and rolls right back up again, propelling himself into the trees. 

He doesn’t get very far. 

***

“Would you kill for him?”

Glenn jerks, nearly falling off the side of the porch. It wouldn’t have hurt, which is probably why Daryl makes no move to save him, but it still would have been annoying to walk back up the stairs to the second floor. 

Flailing, Glenn rights himself, heart pounding. He couldn’t believe Daryl would ask him that now. 

“ _What?_ ” 

Daryl gives him the ‘you’re such a crazy person’ look. “I said, are you ready to go?” 

Glenn lets out a harsh breath, turning back to the woods. He hears Daryl comes to stand next to him, leaning against the balcony. He doesn’t reach out, but Glenn can feel his eyes on him, searching. 

“What?” Glenn can hear how angry he sounds. It’s not what he wants, to be pissed at Daryl, and it just makes him more frustrated. 

“You tell me.” 

Glenn turns to look at him, and he’s just standing there, neutral and waiting. Like he’s about to handle it all. Like Glenn _can’t_. 

He knows he’s being irrational, but he’s getting increasingly angry, and he really can’t do it and maybe that’s why it pisses him off so much. 

“Glenn?” 

Glenn scowls at the trees, out towards the woods where he buried Amy and might have to bury someone else. Might have to bury Daryl, though it wouldn't be here, and it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. He doesn’t intend to let go of his mate without a fight- without going down with him. 

It’s a black thought, but Glenn knows it’s true. Knows that he’ll kill for Rick tonight, that he might have to. That Rick won’t even need to ask. 

He lets out a breath and turns for the door. “Come on, we have a job to do.”

Next to him, Daryl grunts and stands to follow. They walk nearly shoulder to shoulder in the hallway, heading down to go hunt for his brother in the woods. 

Glenn gives him a side glance as they round a corner. His face is set in hard lines, his shoulders tight. It all adds up to resolve Glenn to his position. 

He won’t mess up again, not this time. 

***

“Wakey wakey.” Something connects with the left side of Glenn’s face and he groans, moving to roll over only to be stopped by a pressure on his arms. 

His eyes fly open and he jerks to find Merle’s face inches from his own, his hand still raised from when he’d slapped him. From the sting on his right cheek Glenn would guess that it hadn’t been the first time. 

“Well now, isn’t this a shake up.” Merle leans away, and Glenn lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He glances around the room, frowning as Merle paces, clearly enjoying himself. “Now, how is it that a wolf gets taken down by one man with one hand missin’?” 

Spotting the stairs, Glenn realizes where he is. He’s in the storm cellar set apart from the house where Daryl keeps all his spare parts and tools. Glenn had never actually been in it before but it has to-

Merle’s hand connects with Glenn's face again, and the force of it knocks Glenn over, the chair he’s tied to toppling onto it’s side. 

“You best be paying attention to this, boy.” Merle hoists the chair up with his one good arm, slamming it back down in the correct positioning. The jarring movement causes Glenn to become aware of the throbbing pain in his side. 

He gasps, trying not to scream and barely succeeding. His entire right side is _on fire_. Now that he’s aware of it, he can’t believe he hadn’t noticed the pain before, that it hadn’t kept him awake. Of course, he’s obviously suffering from blood loss and probably shock, his medical training informs him. Knowing this doesn’t stop him from trying to double over in pain. 

Merle laughs, taking in his struggle. “Stings like a bitch don’ it? Gettin’ shot.” He gets back in Glenn’s face taking hold of his shoulder to pull him as close as his restraints will allow.

“See this?” He holds up the ruined stump of his right arm, the metal device he’d strapped to it removed. “It did a bit more then sting. An’ you all watched with my own _brother_ while it happened!” The last few words were yelled and Glenn resisted the urge to flinch back. 

Merle releases him, letting the chair drop back onto the ground with a clatter. One of the chair legs wobbles, weak from the impact. Glenn glances down at it, an idea forming in the back of his mind. 

“Gon’ pay for this. You and the _pack_.” He spits out the last word, distaste curling his features. 

“You took my brother from me.” He fixes Glenn with a hard look. “Now I’m gonna’ take you from him. See how he likes it.” 

Glenn think about how he could say that this isn’t true, that Daryl did what he had to do to protect Merle, to keep him alive, but decides that still and quiet had been working just fine so far. Merle was clearly capable of carrying on this conversation all on his own. 

“He should have fought with me- we should’a gone down together!” 

Glenn looks around the room, pretending to listen to Merle’s comic-book villain rant. He doesn't have too many options for weapons, but neither does Merle, so he’d have to go get one to kill Glenn. Hopefully leaving him alone long enough to get out of this, or for the rest to come and get him. 

Merle slams the wall with his good hand, still ranting and causes a shelf of spare motorcycle parts to shake. 

Worry for the others creeps up Glenn’s spine. He’d left them. Were there even enough left to attempt a rescue? Did they know he was missing? He realizes that he has no idea how long he’d been unconscious. 

“I’ll tell you one thing.” Glenn says and watches Merle turn for the door, looking back at him. “You’re gonna’ regret this when I’m done with you.” 

He stops at the bottom of the stairs and fixes Glenn with a look. Glenn holds his gaze, glaring at the much larger man. He doesn’t blink.

After a minute, Merle laughs and turns for the door. 

“Ah man, I can almost see why he likes you.” He jogs up the stairs, calling back down. “You’re a bigger man than him!” 

The door slams shut. Glenn growls low in his throat, glaring at the now empty space. 

After a second, he realizes that he’s wasting time being righteously angry on Daryl’s behalf and sets about escaping. 

He looks around the room. Nothing of use. 

“Ok, ok.” He cranes his neck to look behind him. Nothing. 

The tape on his arms is tight, totally cutting off all movement there. He’s in the process of deciding where the best place to throw himself to try to break the chair is when the door opens again and three massive guys he doesn’t know descend the stairs. No doubt the three massive mystery wolves from before. 

Panicking, Glenn throws himself backwards in a last ditch effort which does nothing except make him look like an idiot and rip the bandage off his side. He grunts, trying and failing to roll to a crouch. One of the men laughs and yanks him up, slamming him back down again in the upright position. It’s turning into a trend. Glenn wishes it would stop. 

The one that picked him up grabs a chunk of his hair to yank his head back. “What’s the deal with this one?”

“Don’t know, some personal business of Merle’s I guess.” The smallest of the three, though easily bigger than Glenn, calls out from where he’s going through a box of spare parts. 

The first growls and lets go. “This isn’t supposed to be personal.”

“Tell it to him man, I’m just doin’ what I’m told.” 

“Guy’s crazy, Gov. never should’a taken him in. Fuckin’ liability. We’re here on a recon assignment, not a revenge scheme.” 

The third, quieter guy is studying Glenn from the side. He doesn’t look like an exile, like some low life reject that picks for scraps off the territory of other packs. He looks disciplined, like a soldier. 

Glenn takes a breath, glancing towards the door. He can hear what sounds like the beginnings of a fight not far from the entrance. 

They might be in even bigger trouble than they thought.


	8. Honor Thy Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the second-to-last chapter (probably). Sorry it took so long -again-  
> I am trying. Promise. I don't mean to be this way haha

Glenn tries to focus on the noises from outside, searching for a familiar sound among the scraps and growls that are getting closer. There’s a particularly loud yelp and the heads of all three of the guards turn simultaneously. 

“What the hell is-”

The biggest, the one Glenn had taken to be the leader, raises a hand. “Shut up.” The room goes silent. 

The fight seems to be moving away from them, though it’s impossible to really tell. “Martinez...”

The big guy whirls. “I said shut the fuck up!” 

He jerks his head towards the door and the third guy, who had been quietly watching Glenn the entire time, follows him up the stairs. “Watch the kid.” He calls back down the stairs, like an afterthought. 

Glenn watches them go, watches the squirly guy that got left behind glare at their backs. He fights down a smirk as the guy turns back to face him, resentment evident on his face. Looks like a man easily goaded into a fight, he thinks. 

He knows a golden opportunity when he sees one. 

One severely broken chair, a good deal of taunting, and an unknown amount of punches to his face and body later, and Glenn is staggering into the night air, sending a thank you up to whatever guardian angel must be looking out for him because that should not have fucking worked. 

There are marks scarring the ground in the area are signs of a clear fight, one that had apparently moved on. Glenn makes himself focus, aware logically that the best way to find out if something had happened to Daryl- or any of the others, is to be efficient. Find them. 

He turns and quickly jambs the mysterious piece of motorcycle he’d used to hit the guy with into the handles of the door, hoping that it holds it closed in real life as well as in movies for when the other man comes up looking to kill Glenn. Because there’s no way he’d win that fight if it was to the death, and hard as it’d been to fight the instinct to follow the wolf and finish the fight, all he’d been looking for this time was an escape. 

Satisfied with his work on the door he turns and almost crashes into Daryl, in human form with a furious look on his face. Relief washes over Glenn like a physical force.

“Daryl! I-” 

Daryl grabs him by the shoulders, roughly jerking him around in a circle. After a second Glenn realizes that he’s looking for damage, and probably finding it. The fight hadn’t exactly been easy, and he rather suspects that adrenaline is the only thing keeping him upright and moving at the moment. 

Glenn pushes down the impulse to get annoyed at the manhandling, reminding himself of Daryl’s unconventional ways of expressing emotion. They have more important things to deal with right now anyway, like getting away from the basement with the soon to be very conscious and very angry werewolf. 

Daryl shows no immediate sign of finishing though, so Glenn decides to get some answers. 

“What- where are the others?” It’s not what he really wants to know, but it’s as close as he can get to asking if anyone has died. 

Daryl stops, glaring, still silent but pausing his investigation. Glenn jumps on the opportunity. “Come on.” He says, tugging on Daryl’s arm. “We can’t stay here.”

Daryl nods, and leads him back into the woods. Glenn watches him out of his side vision as they run, his mouth set in a hard line. Glenn understands that Daryl knows him well enough at this point to see when he’s trying to keep his movements steady, but there’s something wrong with his leg. 

Once they cross deep enough into the tree line Glenn leans down to inspect it because as much as he doesn’t want to draw attention back to himself, he needs to know. It’s a decent mess, his knee must have taken a hard hit. 

“Great.” Glenn murmurs, softly. Daryl twitches, then explodes. 

“You dumb, filthy, motherless, _idiot!_ What the hell were you thinking runnin’ off like that!”

Glenn glares up at him from the ground, resisting the urge to jump up and start yelling too, to point out that he had gotten himself out and that he can take care of himself. Because it wouldn’t make any difference, and the longer they argue the longer it would take for them to find the others. So he just stays in a crouch and waits for Daryl to yell himself out. 

“-you can’t just _do_ that! I don’ even know why we brought you with us-” 

Glenn feels his face burn, blood boiling with it, because this is _his_ pack. Daryl didn’t want it. He tries to tell himself that this is how Daryl deals with pretty much all of his feelings, but eventually it gets to be too much..

He jumps up, getting in Daryl’s face. “Will you shut up!” He yells, cutting Daryl off mid rant.

Daryl narrows his eyes, his mouth snapping closed. Glenn supposes he might have shocked him, he doesn’t generally yell back. Daryl makes an abortive gesture, like he’s about to grab Glenn but thinks better of it midway through when Glenn takes a step back. 

Glenn takes a deep breath and holds it, pushing the anger back down- something he’d gotten quite good at since he’d met Daryl. Big surprise there. 

“Ok. We need to find the others.” Daryl pulls a face, but the fire in his eyes has mostly faded out, and Glenn knows he’s back in focus. 

Daryl glares off the side, toward the house. “Yeah.” 

“Do you know what happened with the fight outside the-”

“We were tryna’ find _you_. An’ then Rick and the others led the rest off so I could change an’ get the door open.” 

“Ok, so they could pretty much be anywhere now.”

“Right.” Daryl squats, sniffing at the ground. “Can’t make anything out though, too much traffic.”

“Guess we go with the old fashion way then.” Glenn pops his neck, dropping down too, feeling something in his leg pull in a way it shouldn’t. _Great._ He thinks. Changing is never fun on his best days, and he’d done it several times in the past forty-eight hours. He expects it to hurt, which doesn’t actually do anything to help the fact that it’s excruciating. 

When he rises on four legs, Daryl is already changed and waiting. Glenn has a moment of struggle getting to his feet, his back leg catching on itself, and he nearly collapses back down. Only pride keeps him upright. Daryl whines and darts over, so much more expressive in his preferred shape. He comes right up to Glenn’s side and rubs his face against his flank, whining low in his throat.

The logical part of Glenn realizes that he’s angry at Daryl, but the wolf in him doesn’t care, tuning to lick at his face, pushing back against him, feeling his solid weight. He wants to stay there, to wrap up in Daryl’s warmth and heal, to sleep for the next year. But they’ve wasted enough time already. 

Glenn nudges Daryl hard with his nose, earning him an affronted look. _Come on._ Glenn tries to say. Daryl gets it.

***

“Know where I never been?”

“Everywhere that isn’t Georgia?” Glenn comments wryly from his position on Daryl’s couch, an empty box of pizza on the table next to him. 

Daryl rolls his eyes and throws a can in his general direction, though it bounces off the table and goes wide. Glenn smirks. 

“Ok, where?”

“Nah I’m done talkin’ to you if yer gonna-”

“ _Daryl._ ” Glenn sits up, and does his best to look contrite, a bit annoyed at himself for potentially ruining a chance to hear Daryl talk about something personal. 

Daryl is silent for a few seconds, busying himself with opening another beer. Glenn bites his lip to keep from making a crack about ‘always five o'clock somewhere’ so as not to provoke more silence. Daryl doesn’t really adhere to human standards of drinking behavior. Or to any standards really. 

“You ever been to Mexico?”

Glenn flops back down. “Nope. Just the U.S. and South Korea once to visit the homeland.” He cranes his neck to look a Daryl, upside down. “Mom was real big on cultural roots, had the whole family tree mapped out and everything.” 

Daryl makes a rumbling sound that Glenn can identify at this point as a laugh. They’d been doing this _thing_ for a few weeks now, Glenn coming over to Daryl’s house for food and conversation, then going out to run and play at night. Simple. 

Except for the times Glenn caught Daryl looking at his mouth, like the memory of the kiss still wouldn’t leave him alone either. 

Luckily, they both seem to a have similar strategy in dealing with emotional issues. Don’t, eat pizza, and make a lot of squirrel jokes. 

“Why Mexico?” Glenn asks, still upside down. Daryl gives him a look Glenn doesn’t know yet and stretches, letting his shoulders pop. 

“Dunno’.” He settles back into the chair, feet on the table. “Bet it’s warm, y’know? Lotta’ space.” 

Glenn smiles, thinking of the maps Daryl has stashed all over the house. He doesn’t talk about it much, but Glenn strongly suspects that they were important to him as a kid, the fact that there were other places out there. He wonders why he never went. 

“You could just go.” Glenn says, turning so he can look at Daryl straight on. 

Daryl scoffs, leaning his head back against the chair and closing his eyes. “Don’ be stupid.”

“Why not? I mean, the fence doesn’t go all the way across, just get to the border and run. I bet they don’t exactly check passports for wolves.” He sticks his hands behind his head. “Water might be an issue though, just because of the desert...”

Daryl snorts. “It’s not like we actually gonna do this.” 

Glenn tries to ignore the way his heart rate picks up at the ‘we’, but quickly responds before Daryl can take it back. “Well why not? I mean it. It could totally happen.” 

He shifts again, embarrassed, and closes his eyes. 

When he opens them again, Daryl is looking right at him, something Glenn can’t name in his eyes. For a moment, they just stay like that, before time catches up with them and Glenn coughs, getting to his feet. He can feel how red his face is and tries to will himself to calm down. 

_What the hell?_ He thinks, not meeting Daryl’s eyes.

“Well, I should go.” He says, fishing for his phone in the couch cushions. 

“You coming back tonight?”

Glenn glances over. “Uh, no I can’t, have to go do the, you know, pack thing at Andrea’s. Apartment.” He says, oh so eloquently. 

Daryl smirks at him, though the humor doesn’t quite reach his eyes, which are still dark. “She the uppity one?”

Glenn snorts. “You could say that I guess, though you could also say she’s a straight-up bitch.” 

Daryl laughs, short and harsh, but still a laugh. Glenn laughs with him, awkwardly standing halfway out of his doorway. 

“Ok, I should really go.” Glenn says. Daryl stands, waving him off.

“Yeah. Later.” He disappears into the next room, leaving Glenn to see himself out. 

Glenn rolls his eyes and goes, spotting a map of Mexico on the table in the room that should probably be a dining room, but mostly just got used for hunting tools storage. Glenn feels the odd urge to touch it, a smile curving up on the corner of his mouth. 

“Chink you leavin’ or what?” Daryl’s yells, voice coming from upstairs. 

Glenn jumps. “Yeah, I’m going. See you later!”

There’s no response, so Glenn just goes, giving the house one final glance as he gets into his piece of shit car. He spots Daryl in a window, watching, and it sends a jolt straight through him, right to his core. He nearly gasps, almost gets out and runs back up to the house. He drives away instead. 

His phone buzzes. It’s Amy, reminding him that he promised to bring pizza and saying that he should get there soon because Lori ‘has a big surprise.’

He glances at the clock. “Whoops.” He’s going to be late. Guess he got distracted. 

***

Finding the others is bizarrely difficult, considering the fact that they’re probably involved in an active wolf fight but the Dixon land extends for acres, edging into the wilderness of Georgia. 

It briefly occurs to Glenn that he really isn’t in any state to be fighting. Werewolves might heal fast but between his fight with Shane, getting beat on by Merle and then fighting the had just done in the basement, he had taken enough in the past couple of days to basically render him unfit for duty. 

He finds he doesn’t really give a shit though, as they finally collide with what can only be described as a battle between his family and the ones who had terrorized them. 

Glenn throws himself forward, adrenaline pumping, forgetting his pain as he races to knock down the wolf on top of Jim’s back, biting his neck. He get’s swept up in the ebb and flow of the fight, a bite here, a tackle to the ground that quickly turns into jumping on someone else. One of the big ones gets a hold on the scruff of his neck and pulls, ripping fur and skin, but then one of theirs takes him down, Jim? Rick? and rips out his throat. Glenn turns, slips in his own blood, and keeps fighting. 

Eventually, it gets down to the last haul. That’s the thing about rogues, they’re more likely to run away because they have no Pack ties. Most of them, with the notable inclusion of the three big black ones, had left. Glenn’s defending Jim, who’s badly hurt, can barely stand, pushing back one of the smaller ones Merle had brought with him. 

There’s a few bodies, or pieces of them, around in the field. 

Had he killed anyone? Glenn can’t decide.

Suddenly, the wolf Glenn’s facing off with feints to the left and takes off into the trees. Glenn lets him go. It’s difficult to watch an opponent run away and not chase them, but he can’t leave Jim unprotected. 

He turns in time to see Rick take down one of the stragglers, pinning him. The only fights left still in progress are the ones between Shane and a big brown wolf, and between Daryl and his brother. 

Apparently, though he could barely run, Merle could still fight as a wolf as long as he could bite. Part of Glenn had been distantly surprised to see that Merle hadn’t run after it became clear that his side wasn’t winning, but another understood that Merle was going down tonight, and he was taking as many members of the pack with him as possible. If it hadn’t been for Daryl, he would have killed both Jim and Glenn already. 

Behind them, Andrea paces angrily, blood streaking the blond fur of her flank and dripping from her mouth. 

Jim struggles to his feet, limping toward the fight, to where the others had formed a rough circle. Glenn sticks close, but stays slightly back, trying to keep an eye on the trees just in case they have any more trouble, and notices Shane doing the same on the other side. 

Daryl knocks Merle down, but is quickly flipped, Merle teeth locked on his shoulder blade. Glenn tenses, but in a flash Andrea is there, toppling them both to the ground. 

Daryl backs off, joining the rest of them in the circle. Glenn has a flash of clarity, realizing why it had taken Daryl so long to finish it, because as good a Merle is, he still only has three paws. He’d probably been waiting for Andrea to intervene. 

_Brother for sister._ He thinks, watching Andrea rip out Merle Dixon’s throat, rage giving her strength enough to hold him down. 

Silence falls. Glenn tries and fails to not look at Daryl, wanting to give him time, but it doesn’t matter since Daryl isn’t looking at any of them anyway. 

***

“Daryl?”

Glenn watches him for a response, but he’s either lost in thought or just ignoring him, staring down at the city from the bedroom window of Glenn’s apartment. They don’t stay over in the city often, and when they do Glenn often finds him like this in the morning. He doesn’t really understand it, because as he will tell anyone willing to listen, Daryl hates the city.

After a few more seconds, Glenn rolls over, deciding to go back to sleep and let Daryl deal with his own life at six in the morning, but then he speaks up.

“You know I never set foot in the city til’ I was about fifteen. Scared me shitless, all the noise an’ straight lines.” His voice is so quiet Glenn has to strain to hear. 

“Merle almost had to drag me in, didn’t want to go by himself. Said we had to stick together, an’ a bunch of other stuff about humans. He never did like em’.” 

Glenn blinks, sitting back up. “Erm- yea?” He says, his vocal cords sticking a bit from sleep.

Daryl half turns, glancing over his shoulder at him. “Go to sleep, kid.” 

Glenn willingly complies, slipping back into the quiet of his own mind, except that he dreams about Daryl in a city of bars, holding a rope wrapped around Merle’s severed hand. Images blend together, like they always do, and later on all he will really remember is the image of Daryl sitting on the porch the day he first saw him, his eyes tired and Merle loud and huge, banging around behind him in the house. 

When he wakes up for real the late morning sun is streaming into the room and Daryl is back in the bed. Glenn shifts to lean on one elbow, trying to not to wake him. It’s a rare thing that he gets to see Daryl asleep, as a wolf or a man. He almost always wakes up first, often waking Glenn up immediately or just slipping away altogether. 

His hair is all over the place, sticking up in a way that, combined with his relaxed expression, makes him look significantly younger. He’s adorable, which isn’t something often said about Daryl Dixon. 

Glenn smiles and runs a hand through Daryl’s sweaty hair, which is decently gross, but it’s summer in Atlanta and heat is expensive. Daryl twitches, pulling a face, and Glenn snorts.

“Chasing squirrels in there?” He asks, running his thumb over Daryl’s temple.

“Gu- fuck you.” Daryl growls, cracking one eye open. 

Glenn laughs, shifting up to swing a leg over his hips, effectively straddling him. Daryl grunts, throwing an arm over his eyes. “Ge’off.” 

Glenn leans down. “What?” He licks his ear. “You want me to get you off?” 

That gets his attention, and Glenn spends the remainder of the morning in bed, and forgets about the window and straight lines and Merle. 

It’s just him and Daryl. 

***

The clearing is totally dead, devoid of the flurry of movement and sound it had just housed. The leftover sounds, the wind and their combined breath all seem too loud in comparison somehow. 

After a few minutes of them all just staring at Merle’s lifeless body, Glenn starts to get the feeling that they should move, do something. Maybe they should all howl? He doesn’t know. That could attract attention. They should probably just start cleaning up, it’s not like they can leave a bunch of mangled wolf bodies around, even if they are pretty out of the way from the city. 

None of the others seem to moving, not even Rick. Glenn looks around, and figures there has to be someone to get things moving, it’s not like it’s going to get any easier the longer they wait, so he does his best to relax his muscles for the change. 

It’s terrible, but it’s almost to the point where Glenn’s in so much pain it doesn’t even matter. 

He stands, noticing for the first time the extent of his injuries. “Woah.” He wobbles slightly, laughing a bit and catching a flash of blonde hair from the corner of his eye. _Amy._

He turns to her to make a joke about bad days, but it’s Andrea. And it hits him all at once, all over again. 

He takes a second, eyes burning, breath short. He holds onto his knees and just breathing slowly. 

“Shit.” 

His head is spinning, probably from the blood loss. Did Daryl have a first aid kit at the house? He can’t remember where it is, but Jim will need it at the very least. 

He can’t look at Andrea, and he can’t really stand up either yet. _Amy._ A sob creeps up on him, but he pushes it back down, not ready to fall apart. _We’re not done._ He thinks, glaring up at the sky to get himself under control again. 

Not knowing what else to do, he turns to ask Daryl about the first aid kit, but find him still standing in the exact same position, and still a wolf. 

Glenn watches him do nothing for a few seconds before Rick touches his shoulder and tells him to get a move on. 

“Ok.” He says, feeling sick. 

When Glenn turns back, Daryl is gone, and Amy is too. Forever.


	9. Mates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I said eight chapters at first, and then nine, but I swear ten will be the last one. :| really.

“The _Governor?_ ” Rick asks, the line between his eyebrows deepening.

“That’s what they said, the three big ones that didn’t seem-”

“Like they belonged, right.” 

Glenn nods, glancing around Rick’s living room, trying to subtly determine the time. How long had he even been awake? He isn’t sure, but he does know that pretty much all of his body is aching and if he doesn’t get some sleep soon he’s going to crash. And Daryl is still missing. 

Part of Glenn had honestly expected him to be waiting there, or at least show up at some point during the several hour period of moving an work they had done since the fight ended. But he hasn’t shown up. Glenn lets out a slow breath and avoids Dale’s eyes. He keeps catching people shooting him sympathetic looks, and it’s putting him on edge. 

They’re all crammed into Rick’s house again, basically sitting on top of each other and waiting to be dismissed. Lori, Carl, and the others are all fine. It seems that Merle had really just been after Daryl- and Glenn. He frowns at the floor, itching to get out, maybe to go find Daryl or maybe just to get away from Andrea’s haunted expression. 

_She killed Merle Dixon._ Glenn thinks, and a shiver runs up his spine. He looks away, out the window. Rick has moved on, talking to Shane in a hushed tone Glenn can probably make out if he wants to. 

He’s done his part, moving bodies, burning bodies, hiding evidence, telling Rick what he knows, and now all he really wants to do is to retreat. It’s too much. He can only imagine how Rick must feel.

He glances back over to Rick and sees that his back is straight but his movements are stiff, like moving is hard. Glenn tries not to think about his own injuries too much. Or anything really.

The sun is coming up, _again_. Glenn fights down a groan, telling himself to be mature about this. 

“I can’t help but notice that Dixon Jr. is missing again.” Shane says, louder than he needs to. “Right when all the rest of Merle’s lackeys ran too. Figures.” 

Glenn glares, but it’s all he has the energy to summon up. Honestly, he knows Shane is full of it, and that’s what matters. He’s just so tired. 

Rick gives Shane a half-hearted stern look. “He fulfilled his end of the deal. We’re square with him.” Shane grunts, moving to stand by Dale on the other side of the room, making sure to look at Glenn while he does it. Glenn makes a valiant effort not to roll his eyes because seriously? People died last night and he’s going to be a petty dick about this? 

Rick runs a hand through his hair, sighing, and Glenn follows the movement. He frowns, thinking. Maybe Rick isn’t as capable as Glenn had made him out to be in his head, maybe he’s just a guy who ended up in a position because someone had to. Rick visibly draws himself up, and he looks away, embarrassed for some reason. 

Rick rests a hand on his mantle piece and looks around the room. “You all look like hell.”

Nobody laughs, probably because it’s too true to be funny. Rick scrubs a hand over his face and Glenn thinks that he’s been up for just as long as he had, probably even longer. And he isn’t invincible, which obviously, Glenn had known. But it’s one thing to know something and another thing entirely to see it. Their Leader, who had probably never dealt with anything like this before, looking like he’s fighting a losing battle in the not passing out department. 

“I know you all probably don’t want to hear some long inspirational speech right now so I’ll be short. We dealt with it. The Pack is safe, and we’re going to get past this.” Rick meets each one of their eyes, and even Andrea, who had mostly been staring off at the floor, looks up for him. 

“You all did well, we can deal with the rest of it later. Go home, or stay if you want to, and keep your guard up.” Rick nods at them and shifts away from the wall, effectively giving his official permission for them to go. 

Glenn stands and heads for the door without doing much more than nodding his goodbyes. He can sense something has changed between him and Rick, like he has a better, more clear view of him. But it isn’t something he doesn’t want to deal with right now, and he needs to go find Daryl. 

The chilly night- or early morning air hits him as he steps outside, much cooler than in the cramped room he’d just been sharing with seven other hot blooded werewolves. It helps to clear his head, which is nice, and also makes him more aware of his injuries, which sucks. He glances around, and has a moment of total in confusion in which he just can’t seem to find his car _anywhere_ before he realizes that it’s at his place because first he ran to Daryl’s, then Shane picked him up and brought him to Rick’s and then everything went to hell. It seems like a lifetime ago, but it really wasn’t more than a few hard days.

“Jesus.” He says, pushing his hands into eyes to try and clear his vision. 

He’s just about to start walking home, because he’s certainly not changing again for the next few days at least, when Dale pulls up next to him in his car and sticks his head out the window. 

“Hey Glenn, you need a ride son?” 

Glenn opens his mouth to say that, no, he doesn’t because he’s going to go walk the streets looking for Daryl, but then he realizes that he can’t say that because it’s crazy because he had no idea where Daryl is and Dale will stop him. Which probably means he really shouldn’t do it in the first place. 

Dale is still looking at him with that pinched look he gets when he’s concerned about someone. “Glenn, no offense but you look like you’re being held together by twigs and spit at this point. Let me give you a ride.”

Glenn thinks about laughing, then decides it’s too much energy and just gets in the passenger seat.

“Andrea?” Glenn asks, the word sticking in his throat a bit. 

Dale sighs. “Staying over with Rick and Lori.” 

Glenn nods. Probably for the best. He looks out the window and thinks about climbing into the back seat to catch a nap, but when he glances back he comes face to face with Jim’s massive, and not to mention canine, form. So much for that. He has the absent thought that he hopes that they don’t get pulled over, since a two hundred pound wolf is kind of hard to explain at five am on a...Wednesday? Thursday? 

Glenn frowns, resting his head on the glass. He blinks, and they’re suddenly outside his apartment, Dale’s hand shaking his shoulder to wake him up and giving him a look of genuine concern.

“Woah.”

“Need help?” 

“No I just need to sleep it off.” Though he’s honestly not so sure about that judging from the unfading pain in his shoulder and left leg. Hopefully though. 

Glenn thanks him and makes it up the steps to his complex with adequate steadiness. Dale waves and pulls away from the curb, jostling Jim, who growls in the back seat. He watches the car disappear from his view, considering the street and telling himself for the thousandth time that looking for Daryl now would be a mistake. It still takes him ten minutes to go inside.

Everything is the same, but somehow it all looks changed. Warped. He shrugs the feeling off and makes his way up to his floor. It feels weird to just be walking around after everything that had happened. Like maybe there should be a time shift to several weeks from now or something. “Mission completed.” He mutters. “Next level, please press start.” 

Glenn snickers at his own stupid joke and curses his landlord for the billionth time for not getting the elevator fixed. Six floors is a long way up. 

***

Sometimes Glenn swings by Daryl’s house and the other man just isn’t around. It doesn’t happen often, but Daryl keeps what would be considered odd hours to a normal person and refuses flat out to own a phone, so it’s hardly a shock when it does. 

Any other time Glenn probably would have left, just come back later with food or something, but now that they’re...whatever they are Glenn feels like it’s probably ok for him to stay. It’s not like he hadn’t practically been living here for the better part of a month anyway. 

Glenn frowns to himself as he walks around the house. Mates, boyfriends, lovers, none of the words seems to fit, and they make him uncomfortable to begin with. Daryl had come right out and said it yesterday when he came to Glenn’s apartment, but for some reason the word _mates_ makes Glenn’s head swim. 

He looks around the backyard, contemplating. There’s nothing to do, but he does have a game they can play. “Might as well.” He mutters, a smirk creeping up as he sets down his bag on the back porch steps and starts stripping down, think that it’s a good thing Daryl lives in the middle of nowhere or the neighbors would get quite the sight.

When the change comes it’s easier than it had been for the past few months, like something in him had settled. It still hurt like a bitch, but he feels less wild, more able to hold onto himself. Probably a side effect of finally resolving ‘the Daryl Question’ as he’d been calling it in his head. Must have reached some kind of peace with his inner wolf or whatever. Dale would know. 

On four legs Glenn stretches, feeling the difference in his other, more efficient muscles. He does a few leaps and turns, chasing the birds for a bit to get readjusted and then takes off into the woods before Daryl comes home and spoils his game. 

He weaves between trees quickly, making sharp turns and doubling back over his own trail, trying to make it as confusing as possible since Daryl had insisted on a challenge for the next time Glenn did this. 

The river proves a useful tool in that respect, and Glenn spends a decent amount of time crossing it repeatedly and then gets distracted trying to catch fish. He may or may not still be jealous of Daryl’s right-off-the-tree squirrel. 

A howl from Glenn’s left brings him back to reality and he scrambles up and out of the water, racing deeper and deeper into the trees. 

_Game on._

Daryl catches him within the hour, like he always does, pinning him down and cleaning his face with his tongue as Glenn pretends to struggle beneath him. Glenn looks up at him, his mouth stretched into a distinctly unwolf-like expression, and thinks that he can probably get used to the idea of having a mate. 

***

When Glenn finally reaches his floor he makes a beeline for his beautiful door and goes right in, flopping down on his shitty, second hand and _amazing_ couch. He lets his muscles relax and he breathes in slowly, reveling in the chance to just stop and be still. 

Everything still smells like Daryl, like it always does now, strong, like he’s there, which Glenn realizes with a jolt is because he _is_ there and that Glenn had walked through his unlocked door without noticing which might not be too great. Daryl who is sitting down next to his head and running his fingers through Glenn’s absolutely disgusting hair. Glenn breaths out slowly, fighting down something strong he doesn’t quite have the energy for, because part of him had kind of expected to never see Daryl again. 

He calms his racing heart by settling into his space, wrapping one arm tightly around the other man so that he can’t leave without Glenn knowing about it again. 

They pass out there, sprawled out with the door still half open until the sun is fully up and Glenn jerks awake from a dream that’s still half-happening to close and lock it. He nearly crawls back over to Daryl, the pain in his body making it difficult to move. He pulls and pushes Daryl to try to get him to lay flat on the couch, and ends up tipping him onto the floor instead.

Daryl makes an angry growling noise but grabs onto Glenn and yanks him down on top of him, wrapping his arm around his middle and holding on so tight Glenn couldn’t really get away if he wanted to. It’s too tight, but Glenn can’t bring himself to complain. They sleep there for most of the day, heedless of the bed in the next room.

Glenn has nightmares, which is hardly surprising all things considered. He thinks that maybe Daryl does too, but he never says anything about them. When he wakes up for good, the sun is on its way back down and Daryl is still passed out beneath him, which is fine because Glenn isn’t going anywhere. 

He runs his fingertips over the flat planes of Daryl’s chest, noticing for the first time that he’s wearing a pair of Glenn’s sweatpants and nothing else. More than likely he walked up to Glenn’s building naked, glaring at anyone who dared look at him. The light thought makes Glenn smirk, tracing old scars and new scratches. 

After a few minutes, Daryl catches his hand, stilling him. Glenn glances up, half annoyed with himself for not noticing when he woke up. 

“Hey.” Daryl blinks down at him, his eyes clouded from sleep and maybe something else. Glenn looks back down at their hands. 

“Hey.” Daryl answers, his voice gravelly. He sounds about as good as Glenn feels, which even after a day spent sleeping is still pretty bad. He shifts, adjusting Glenn so he was laying more on top of his chest. Glenn hums, shifting to make it easier. 

“Thought you left.” He mumbles into Daryl’s neck.

Daryl snorts. “Really?” 

Glenn’s silent for a minute, thinking. “No, not really.”

And he realizes that it’s true, that after everything he didn’t really expect Daryl to just take off like that. Maybe that’s why he could make himself walk up the steps to his building instead of running off to find him in the night. Part of him, the smarter, wolfier part, probably knew that Daryl would be here, and not out by himself somewhere. He’d be waiting for Glenn. 

Eventually, they’re both so awake and they’d been laying on the floor for so long that it’s ridiculous to stay. Glenn’s afraid though, that once they get up, they have to talk about it. All of it. 

Not for the first time, Glenn thinks if only they could just be wolves all the time, then they would just never need to talk about anything. They could just _be_. But for all the escape it would bring, Glenn can’t even bring himself to consider changing, not with his body is it’s current state. He knows that Daryl feels it too, can tell he’s getting ready to sit up, or worse, say something. So he does the next best thing and rises to his knees to press his mouth against Daryl’s, hard. 

Daryl makes a noise that’s halfway between and groan and a growl, moving his hand from Glenn’s back to tangle in his hair, holding him there. Glenn groans and opens his mouth, offering Daryl access. He doesn’t feel like playing dominance games right now, just wants as much of Daryl as he can get. They’re both shaking from too much leftover adrenaline and fear and the first jolts of sudden arousal. 

So he just lets himself get kissed, letting his hands roam all over Daryl’s body, drawing hitched gasps from the other man between breaths. When he hooks a leg around Daryl’s hip to press up and against him, Daryl breaks away from Glenn’s mouth to latch onto his neck, biting down hard enough to draw blood. It hurts, and Glenn loves it, his hands scrabbling at Daryl’s chest. He bucks against him, his jeans uncomfortably tight, especially with the feeling of Daryl hard through thin sweatpants. 

He tries to pull away from him long enough to pull off his reeking clothes but Daryl growls and holds him still, sucking and biting at his overly abused neck. He knows what he’ll look like tomorrow, and it just makes him more determined to mark Daryl up just as much. 

“Shit-” He breaths into Daryl’s neck as he grabs Glenn by the ass and flips them over to pull Glenn below him. The movement takes them away from the couch, and Glenn catches an elbow on the edge of his coffee table, which hurts in a distant, out-of-body way. Honestly he’s in so much pain in general he barely registers it. 

Daryl takes hold of his t-shirt and _pulls_ effectively tearing it halfway off, though the thicker collar part gets momentarily stuck, incurring the Wrath of Dixon. He grunts, yanking at it, causing Glenn to rise a few inches off the floor. Any other time, Glenn probably would have laughed. As it stands, he just pulls it off himself and yanks Daryl back down to the floor with him. 

He rakes his blunt nails down Daryl’s back, leaving marks of his own to match the ones already there from his past. Daryl arches his back into it, looking up to Glenn’s face and sending a jolt through him when he sees just how dark his blue eyes had become, blown wide with arousal. 

Daryl backs off a bit to grab Glenn’s pants from the knees, fisting the material and pulling them all the way off in one motion, and Glenn feels a moment of gratitude for the fact that his new double life had left him leaner but not necessarily able to replace his stupid, too-big jeans. Made them a whole lot easier to take off. 

He breathes out a shaky sigh when Daryl reaches down and takes hold of him, his grip far from gentle. “No underwear?” Daryl leans down, close to his ear. “Not really like you.” 

Glenn whines, and thinks about saying that he didn’t have time, but then Daryl is stroking him and most coherent though goes out the window. He lays there and writhes, letting Daryl take total control for the moment, bucking up into his hand. 

He’s almost there, almost coming, when Daryl suddenly tightens his grip and stops him, wringing a tortured whine out of Glenn. 

“Jus’ let me.” He moans, panting. “I’ll be ready again in a minute.” 

Daryl ignores him, sticking his unoccupied hand under the center couch cushion and rooting around for a few seconds before just flipping the whole thing up and looking, letting go of Glenn entirely. “The hell is it?”

Glenn sits up and plasters himself across Daryl’s back, pushing himself against him. He’s burning so much he barely notices Daryl’s triumphant sound as he finds the lube they keep stashed there, since this isn’t the first time they hadn’t felt like walking to the bedroom. 

Glenn does notice when Daryl turns and manhandles him until he’s on his hands and knees, ass in the air for Daryl to run his hands all over. Glenn sticks his face in his elbow and moans, the sound high and whiny. Christ but he feels like he’s going to die if Daryl doesn’t hurry up and fuck him already.

Luckily, Daryl seems to be of a similar opinion, hurrying to open him up. The jump between one and two fingers might be a bit too much too soon, but Glenn just breaths around the pain and pushes back on the intrusion. Like a little more soreness is really going to matter at this point anyway. 

Daryl’s muttering to himself, dirty talk most likely that he can’t quite make himself say at a normal volume. He isn’t much of a talker in general, and sex is no exception, but sometimes when Daryl loses track of himself it all comes pouring out. Glenn clenches around his fingers, trying to communicate that _he’s ready_ through that alone because he seems to have lost his voice. 

Daryl gets it, and Glenn can hear the hitch in his breathing when he wraps a hand around himself to slick up. A moment later he’s pressing forward, leaning into Glenn and holding his hips still in massive hands. Glenn lets his head drop between his shoulders, and Daryl follows the motion, licking down his spine to the base of his neck as he slides all the way in and stays there. 

“ _God_ Daryl.” Glenn moans, trying to thrust his hips. Daryl has him in a vice grip though and he just can’t move, can only hold himself up with shaking arms as Daryl takes his own sweet time, skimming his fingers lightly over Glenn’s skin. 

When he starts to move, Glenn whines, low in his throat and takes it, just takes everything Daryl will give him. Harsh jolts of arousal shoot up his spine, hot and almost too much. He doesn’t try to touch himself, knowing that Daryl will just stop him anyway because he wants Glenn to come just from getting fucked, just from Daryl taking him. He knows because they’ve been like this before, this desperate and uncontrolled, and probably will be again.

Daryl shifts his angle inside him, and Glenn cries out. The sound seems to spur Daryl on, making him go harder, rougher, and it’s exactly what Glenn wants so he keeps it up, tells Daryl how good he is, how much Glenn _needs _it, just to feel Daryl’s rhythm stutter before returning at double speed.__

It’s too much, and Glenn comes, his arms giving out. Daryl growls and keeps going, drawing it out for him and chasing his own release. Glenn moans at the feeling, the overstimulation and has a moment of gratitude when Daryl comes a few minutes later, squeezing his hip so hard he knows he’ll have ten nice little circles to look at for a day or so. 

Daryl collapses, managing to aim to the side so as not to crush him, which Glenn appreciates on a distant, I’m so fucked out and lazy level. He wraps an arm around Glenn’s waist and hauls him so they’re spooned together, and they really should sleep like that because it’s gross and they’ll regret it tomorrow, but they do it anyway. 

Before he drifts off, Glenn has the errant thought that maybe they shouldn’t be this lazy, they did just sleep for an entire day after all, but then Daryl tightens his arm around his middle and growls at him to ‘stop thinkin’ so much’ so he lets himself go. It’s nighttime again anyway. 


	10. The Long Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S DONE. I'm so sorry this took so long. I don't even have anything to say for myself.

The sun is barely up when Glenn just can’t take it anymore and gets up to shower. He hadn’t been asleep for at least two hours, just staying curled up with Daryl, but it got to a point where he just couldn’t lay there anymore. So he cleans himself up, half expecting Daryl to join him in the shower. He’s partly grateful that he doesn’t, figuring that they both probably need a moment to themselves.

Daryl looks up when Glenn pads back into the main room, wearing what is apparently the only clean set of clothes he has left. Which he thinks is understandable considering the fact that clothes are expensive to a twenty-something pizza boy who occasionally rips out of them when exploding into a werewolf. 

“Hey.” He says to Daryl’s nod, settling himself on the couch as the other man gets up, hopefully to go shower as well judging from the way he reeks. The sound of the shower drifts out into the main room, as does Daryl’s short burst of cursing at the coldness of the water. Glenn allows himself a small smile, though he feels almost guilty about it, considering everything that had happened. Is he allowed to think about other things yet? He isn’t sure. 

Glenn settles into the cushions and wonders what he’s meant to be doing, besides calling the pizza place and trying to explain why he had missed work. Or at least call the others and see how they’re doing, if they need help. He should make himself available to Rick at the very least. 

He turns on the television instead, letting the images wash over him so he can think. Things have changed, Glenn can feel it. His place in the pack, his position in regards to Rick, his relationship with Daryl...it’s going to be different. _Glenn_ is going to be different and he wants just one more day of normalcy. One last day to stay the same.

Daryl stays in the bathroom for a long time, even after the water stops. Glenn ends up watching the TV guide and listening to the sounds of his mate avoiding the real world too. _It’s comforting,_ Glenn thinks, _that we’re pretty much equally cowardly when it comes to emotional shit._

Glenn’s watching the scrolling channel list for what seems like the hundredth or so time when Daryl finally emerges, neutral faced like they didn’t both know he’d been done shaving for the past twenty minutes. He’s holding the first aid kit, which is the only stock in Glenn’s apartment other than beer that Daryl insists must be full at all times. 

He sits down next to Glenn, taking hold of his damaged arm without asking. “Can’t take you anywhere can I.” He comments, mildly. Glenn looks over at him and frowns, glancing down at it.

His wounds are pretty bad, but not horrible anymore. He won’t be changing anytime soon, but they certainly aren’t the kind to warrant a trip out to Hershel’s farm to visit the unofficial pack doctor. Unofficial because he and his family have chosen for years to neither join nor oppose the pack, but to provide the medical services they can’t get in the normal world in exchange for protection from other, less agreeable rogues. 

Glenn looks back up to Daryl. “Could be worse.” He jokes, realizing almost immediately that he shouldn’t have. 

Daryl glares at him, serious. “Could have been nothin’ too.” He growls, his voice tight in that way it gets when he can’t even be bothered with yelling. 

Glenn doesn’t have a response that won’t start the fight they probably need to have, so he just looks away instead, leaving Daryl to angrily wrap up his arm. He finds himself really considering for the first time his place in the pack. He almost just _died._ Other people did die. He realizes he’d never actually had to deal with that before, except as a hypothetical that didn’t come close to measuring up to reality. He had been aware that this kind of thing was expected of him in theory, but reality hit real hard, and real fast.

He’s never had to deal with this before, ever. It all just happened before he had time to process it. Hell, the whole werewolf thing just kind of _happened_. He fell in with the pack, he fell in with Daryl, and it had all felt right. It was _natural._ Wasn’t it? 

“You zonin’ out on me kid?” 

Glenn jerks and turns back to Daryl, who had apparently finished with his arm some time ago because the box is packed back up already. Glenn laughs, hearing how strained it sounds. “Yeah, I guess.” 

Daryl just nods, sharp eyes still locked on Glenn’s face. They lapse back into that silence that Glenn can’t take so he jumps up off the couch and into the kitchen area, determined to find something to do. 

“You hungry?” He calls out, not waiting for Daryl’s response before he makes a beeline for the fridge. 

“No.” Glenn wraps a hand around the fridge handle, stalled. Neither is he. He doesn’t know what to do though. Daryl should be getting into shit, throwing the table, yelling at him. He should be acting like himself, but he’s not, and Glenn doesn’t know what to do without him. 

_His brother is dead._ Glenn thinks, at a loss. Shouldn’t he have some kind of instinctual idea of how to deal with this? He stares absently at the fridge door. Maybe he and Daryl should just go. They had both wanted to when they were about to go out with the Pack, and now they actually could. Run away together and live in the woods. Could Glenn walk away from the Pack? Two days ago he couldn’t have, but now? He isn’t sure.

But then, he isn’t really sure about anything at the moment. 

He’s still standing there like a dumb ass when he spots his work schedule pinned to the fridge by his one magnet, a pizza slice that had been free with his work hat. He squints at it, noticing for the first time that all the lights in the apartment are off, and laughs.

He turns back to around to face Daryl, who is currently staring up at the ceiling, face blank. Glenn calls out to him. “Hey, guess what.” Daryl grunts, not bothering to look up. 

Glenn holds up the paper anyway. “Bright side. I only missed one day of work- so I might not even be fired.” He says it with such intentionally ironic enthusiasm that it actually gets a brief smile out of the other man, which Glenn decides to count as his achievement of the day. 

***

“Hey kid.”

Glenn turns, not surprised to see the man, Rick, standing behind him. He’d been able to hear him all the way up the driveway, he’d even heard some of his muted conversation with Dale, the one who had been his constant companion for the past few days. Making sure he didn’t escape and tear some hikers apart or something like that. Not that Glenn would try to do that, not again. Dale is a nice guy, and much less threatening than this man. 

Glenn watches him, unsure of how to act and partially distracted by wondering if anyone would be able to sneak up on him now that he’s- whatever he is. He isn’t really comfortable with the W-word yet. It’s too much. 

Rick sits down on the couch and smiles with his mouth closed, probably so as not to show his teeth and be misunderstood. Glenn makes a half-hearted attempt to smile back. 

“Hello, uh, officer.” He says, and is briefly surprised by how scratchy his voice sounds before he remembers all the screaming he’d been doing lately. Changing, or whatever, _hurts._

Rick laughs softly. “You don’t have to call me officer, son.” 

Glenn nods, not bothering to mention that calling him _son_ and _kid_ all the time sort of undermines the sentiment. “Alright.” 

“So.” Rick says, amiably. “How are you feeling today?” 

Glenn can’t help but wince just thinking about it. “Uh-”

“I understand.” 

Glenn thinks back to yesterday, to seeing Rick Change. Proving what Glenn refused to accept. 

“Yeah, I guess you probably do.” Glenn mutters, trying not to strain his voice. 

Rick just nods. “Yes, I do. It gets easier though.” 

“So it stops hurting?” 

Rick glances over sharply, meeting his eyes. “I didn’t say that.” 

Glenn nods, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest. The doubt. What would his life be like now? Would he be a danger to the public? He takes a deep breath to push down the rising anxiety, bringing the urge to Change along with it. 

Rick watches him passively and Glenn thinks he might see approval in his face. “You’re getting better at controlling it already. You’ll be out and about in no time at this rate.” He says, and Glenn can’t help but feel proud of himself. 

“What’s going to...happen after that?” Glenn asks, even though he didn’t really mean to.

Rick looks him over. “How much did Dale tell you?”

“Just that there are others, and you’re in charge.” Glenn says, slowly. _Both of which had been obvious from the start,_ he thinks but doesn’t say. Even in putting himself at a physically lower level that Glenn by sitting down, Rick’s authority is clear. He’s the boss. The Alpha, or whatever it was Dale said. 

Rick nods. “That’s accurate. The ‘others’ are like a family to those of us in the Pack.” 

“What about people...wolves...or whatever, not in the Pack?” Glenn asks, heart pounding. 

“They exist, we don’t keep people against their will or pass judgements unless it becomes necessary.” 

Glenn thinks about his failed escape attempt, and shivers. “Right.” 

“So if you don’t want to stay with us, that’s fine. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” 

Glenn frowns. “Dale said something about Rules?” 

“Pack Rule. Yes.” He stands and walks over to the water pitcher Dale had left them, causing Glenn to tense up automatically. “They’re pretty basic, just don’t reveal the existence of our kind, don’t come into our territory if you aren’t allowed to, and don’t kill other people.” 

“Oh.” Glenn says, mostly because he doesn’t know how else to respond. 

Rick nods, holding out a glass for Glenn, who takes it. “There’s more to it than that, Dale will give you the details, but that’s the basic idea.” 

“Sounds...reasonable.” 

Rick sits down again, and this time Glenn copies him. “It is.” He says, leaning back. His comfortable posture puts Glenn more at ease. “We aren’t monsters, Glenn. We have a choice.” 

Glenn nods, staring at the floor. His bones hurt, even his teeth hurt. It’s a bit difficult to think. 

“Look, you don’t have to decide anything now. Just think it over.” Rick says, reaching out to lay his hand on Glenn’s shoulder. It’s the first time anyone has touches him in weeks. It feel nice, like belonging. 

Glenn looks up, meeting Rick’s eyes. 

“I will.” But Glenn knows that he’s already made his decision. 

***

Glenn’s got his feet up next to Daryl’s on the coffee table, pretending to watch the game Daryl had turned on after Glenn sat back down. They’ve been staring at the screen for hours, lost in their thoughts and unspoken agreement to not speak for a while when the phone rings, startling both of them. Glenn jumps up so fast he trips, looking for the source of the noise. 

“Shit.” He curses, rubbing his leg where it had hit the table as he hops across the room. 

Daryl mutters something about him being a jackrabbit, not taking his eyes off the screen as Glenn fumbles with the receiver. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, Glenn. It’s Dale.” 

Glenn blinks, somehow surprised that he’d be calling. “I- yeah hey. What’s up?” He glances over at Daryl, who is watching him now. 

“Oh I’m just calling to make sure you’re alright and to ask if you can come by his place tomorrow for a meet.” 

Daryl scoffs and Glenn doesn’t bother to glare at him. They all know that it isn’t a request. 

Glenn switches the phone to his other hand and picks up a pen to write an ‘M’ on his hand to remind him. “Sure thing Dale.” He says, as agreeably as possible and sets the pen back down. 

Silence.

Glenn glances over at Daryl, who doesn’t move. “...Dale? Are you-”

“Rick wants to know if you’ve seen Daryl since last night.” 

Glenn winces as Daryl audibly growls and gets up off the couch, holding his hand out for the phone. “Uh, yeah...” Glenn makes a half-hearted effort to wave him off as Daryl reaches around his head and takes it from him. 

Glenn can still hear Dale talking. “Oh! That’s good-” 

“Listen old man, I don’t know who you think you are, but better put _Rick_ on the phone right-”

Glenn pats Daryl on the shoulder and leaves the room, heading into the hall to call his boss on his cell. “Had to happen eventually.” He mutters under his breath as Daryl starts to really get going. 

Unsurprisingly, the yelling lasts for a really long time. Glenn calls his boss on his cell phone with his paper-thin excuses, goes down to his tiny apartment-issued mailbox, makes another call to T-dog for the news, and then stands out in the hallway for a while trying to prevent his neighbor from calling the cops on his ‘psychotic hick boyfriend’. 

He’s standing in the kitchen, watching Daryl pace around, still yelling, almost to the point of yanking the phone cord straight from the wall just to make it stop when Daryl abruptly throws the phone so hard the cord snaps. 

Glenn watches it fly across the room, eyebrows raised. They stand in silence for a few minutes, Glenn watching Daryl glare at the phone. 

“I think my neighbor might have called the cops.” Glenn says, finally. 

Daryl jerks and turns to glare at _him_. Glenn just crosses his arms, back in his element. “I’m just letting you know.” 

He grunts. “Let her. Bitch ain’t got anything better to do with her time she can-”

“Are you hungry?” Glenn asks, trying to stop another rant. “Because I am.” 

Daryl shoots him a severely unimpressed look. “Well let’s see.” He says, walking over to the fridge and opening it. 

“Beer, jam, some vegetable, and old milk.” He slams the door. “No food. _Again.”_

Glenn just rolls his eyes. “Yeah well, I guess we could...go out?” Daryl looks so affronted that Glenn bursts into laughter, earning himself a harsh glare. He can’t stop though, bending over at the waist and holding onto the counter. It takes on the edge of the hysterical, but he manages to get himself under control before he really starts to lose it. 

“Fuck it, fine.” Daryl says, quickly, like he doesn’t want to let Glenn go into a fit either. It’s actually pretty grounding. “But no pizza.” 

Glenn snickers once more before straightening and grabbing some money out of his money drawer, which probably isn’t the safest banking solution ever, but whatever. He’s actually pretty proud of himself for thinking of things like money and car keys after so many days in Wolf Mode. 

“Yeah, no pizza.” Glenn says, smiling over at the other man, who just eyes him critically. 

They end walking over to the old and rather sketchy Chinese place a few blocks away. Daryl keeps shooting him glances out of the corner of his eye the whole way, probably confused by Glenn as he alternatively races ahead and lags behind. Glenn can’t seem to keep a steady pace though, too full of energy but somehow exhausted at the same time. 

When the get to the restaurant, Daryl raises an eyebrow. “Chinese.” He says, sliding into a booth. 

“Yeah.” Glenn replies, absentmindedly. 

Daryl smirks. “Isn’t this the food of yer’ people?” 

Glenn laughs and throws the menu at his head just as the waitress stops at their table, giving them both a wide-eyed look. Glenn tries to smile at her reassuringly. “Hi, sorry. We’ll take waters.”

She nods and backs away from them which makes Daryl snicker. Glenn smirks, figuring that they wouldn't be seeing much of her for the rest of the night. They never really do when they go out to eat. The last time they went to a restaurant that wasn’t Waffle House Daryl had ordered “Whatever forty bucks will get us” and refused to accept the fact that you couldn’t just _do_ that. The memory makes Glenn smile as he loads his plate with a truly inspired amount of food. 

For a while they devote themselves to eating. Daryl almost ate in silence, which is a quality Glenn had always appreciated about him. He knows when to shut up and just eat. Most of Glenn’s friends had never mastered the skill, Amy especially. 

At the thought of her, Glenn feel a lot of his previous enthusiasm for the food diminish. He looks at his plate in sullen silence and wonder for a minute how long it will be until he can just go back to normal. 

“Hey.” 

Glenn looks up to see Daryl watching him, concern evident in his face. He blinks, owl like, and tries to smile. “Hey.” Daryl does not seem impressed. 

“Look…”

“Want to go to Mexico?” The words are out before Glenn even knows he’s thought them, but they sound right. He can picture that map on Daryl’s dining room table, and he suddenly just wants to _go._

Daryl's eyebrows fly up. “What, now?” 

“Why not?” Glenn counters, trying not to think about Rick and the pack and the fact that they had work they definitely have to do. They could just go. “We don’t need to pack or anything, we’d just run and-”

“Glenn.” Daryl says, effectively cutting him off. Glenn realizes abruptly that he’d been raising his voice and people were looking at them. He slumps back down in his chair, making a conscious effort to get his heart rate under control. _Can’t change here._ He thinks, viciously. He closes his eyes and leaves them that way until he feels Daryl’s hand land on his shoulder. Glenn startles but doesn’t jerk away, just stares wide-eyed at Daryl’s concerned face. 

“Let’s get out of here.” Daryl says, almost gently. 

Glenn nods, and lets himself be pulled to his feet. 

***

It’s a nice funeral, all things considered. The day is decent, the turn out good, the speeches appropriately sad yet celebratory of Amy’s life. Dale’s speech was nice, which almost made up for the fact that Andrea hadn’t said much of anything all day and people had been whispering about her. 

Glenn sits on a low stone wall near the back of the cemetery and watches as people mill around, occasionally stopping to speak in quiet voices and smile sadly at each other. There’s a group of Amy’s college friends holding each other and crying loudly near the parking lot. He glares at them, annoyed. 

“Idiots.” He murmurs. They didn’t even know her, not really. Glenn jerks his gaze away to glare at something else. 

The funeral is a sham anyway, a show for the human world. People don’t just die and have their bodies dealt with in the human world. There have to be police reports, searches, funerals. Amy had been “missing” for about three weeks when Officers Rick and Shane had found “evidence” of her accidental death. Amy’s real honoring had been a simple affair on Pack lands, her body buried in a grave Glenn had dug himself. 

Glenn rubs a hand over his face, itching to do _something._ He doesn’t know what he wants to do, but he knows that it’s not what he’s doing. Sitting. Thinking too much again. 

He watches the group, picking out the people he actually cares about easily. Rick is stuck between hovering around Lori, who is seems irritated by it, and Andrea, who seems indifferent. Nearby, Shane stands with his arms crossed, glaring around at everyone. Glenn meets his eyes and gets to spend a few tense seconds locked in his gaze. 

“Hey.” Glenn glances away from Shane, annoyed, and sees Daryl standing in front of him, lines of strain around his eyes. Uncomfortable around all the people, still mourning for his brother in his way. Especially given that it had probably been Merle himself that killed Amy. Glenn’s glad that they won’t ever really know for sure, but he remembers the cuts all along Amy’s wrist, and knows that there really isn’t a question. 

Daryl knows it too, Glenn can see how sick he looks. What would he do, Glenn wonders, if his sister was a murderer? He’s not sure if he has Daryl’s strength. 

“Hey.” Glenn answers, finally. Daryl just looks at him, defeated. The past few weeks had not been kind to either of them. Glenn knows that he should probably do something for him. Support him, do _something_ right for a change, but he doesn’t think that he knows how to do anything anymore. 

He does know Daryl though, so he at least knows the quick fix. 

“Want to get out of here?” It’s not really a question, Daryl always wants to leave large, mostly human social functions. It’s a rule of the universe. 

True to form, Daryl nods once and hops over the stone wall, making a beeline for the trees. Glenn sighs and follows him, ignoring the feeling of being stared at running up his back. Shane, probably. He jogs into the woods to catch up to Daryl. They brought a car, but it looks like they won’t be using it. 

Once he clears the trees and is reasonably out of sight of the other people, Glenn starts stripping down. It’s a bad idea to just leave all their clothes in the woods like this, but Daryl is already long and Glenn honestly just does not care. 

He takes off running after him, landing on four paws and immediately trying to pick up the scent. It’s easy, like it always is with Daryl, and Glenn follows after him. He spots the other wolf up ahead, and picks up speed.

As he runs, Glenn gets the distinct feeling that Daryl is half leading, and half running away. Glenn catches up to him, like he always does. They play a half serious game of catch and chase, though there’s a significant undercurrent of tension in the way they run after each other. Glenn just puts his mind to the task and tries to let go of everything else. 

Later, though Glenn isn’t sure how much, they find themselves back in the field behind Daryl’s house, changed back into their other shapes and panting. 

Glenn glances over at Daryl, trying not to look at the house. They hadn’t actually worked up to going inside yet, and he isn’t sure that they ever will. Maybe it will just stand there, sentinel like for the rest of their lives. 

He pushes the thought away and rolls over to lay on top of Daryl, who grunts. “Watch it, kid.” 

“Sorry.” Glenn answers, insincerely. “We left the car-”

“Fuck the car.” 

Glenn takes that as an end to the conversation and stares off at the trees. The Dixon property was nice, it had character. History. 

“Where it all started…” Glenn murmurs. Daryl doesn’t respond, which is fine because Glenn’s falling asleep. 

He’s just about passed out when Daryl speaks again, startling him. “Glenn.” 

“What.” Glenn mutters, tired now that he’d started to let go. 

He pauses, as if considering his words. “I talked…” He stops. “Do you still wanna’ go to Mexico?” 

Glenn raises his head, straining to meet Daryl’s eyes. “Seriously?” He can’t contain the hope in his voice because yes, he does. Ever since the Chinese restaurant Glenn has had this itch that has nothing to do with the urge to change. He loves the pack, loves his people, but he knows he needs to do things for himself sometimes. They need to get away from Georgia for awhile, away from the Dixon house and all the ghosts. 

Daryl just shrugs, the gesture made especially ridiculous laying on the ground. “I guess.” 

It’s as rousing an endorsement as Glenn is ever likely to get. He just about as good at words as Daryl is, so he just surges up and kisses him instead. Daryl makes a surprised sound and kisses back, hard. When Glenn breaks away for air Daryl flips them, landing Glenn on the ground and immediately kissing him again. 

Glenn digs his fingers into Daryl’s back as Daryl bites his lip. 

“Kid, kid.” Daryl gasps between kisses. “Wait I meant to...I talked to Rick, about...”

Glenn kisses him again to put him out of his misery. “I know,” He says, wrapping his legs around his mate’s waist. “Welcome to Pack Rule.”


End file.
